Synopses & Reviews
In these brilliant, thematically linked stories, men and women from the Midwest to the West Coast, from Germany to Japan — engineers, opera singers, waitresses, teenagers, and monks — reckon with their body's relationship to grief, illness, violation, technology, and genocide. They escape their fate in unusual ways — by befriending the squatting heroin addict next door, using a child's flute as a gun in the dark, or ordering a new pair of legs, all in a variety of rich settings. The Man with Eight Pairs of Legs is about the ways our bodies are marked by memory, often literally (burns, bruises, tracks, tattoos), and the risky decisions we make when pushed to the extreme. There's a little O'Connor, a dash of DeLillo, and a cup of Alice Munro mixed together with a great deal of compassion. Leslie Campbell's fiction debut is a must-read and sure winner.
Review
“[An] engaging debut...marked by surprising encounters and poignant reflections.” Publishers Weekly
Review
"History and memory crosscut through The Man with Eight Pairs of Legs in a gorgeous weave. These are marvelous, stirring stories, sometimes sexy, sometimes harrowing, somehow both timeless and timely. Campbell writes with great depth, patience, wisdom, and beauty." Anthony Doerr, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for All the Light We Cannot See
Review
“The Man With Eight Pairs of Legs, Leslie Kirk Campbell's prize-winning debut collection of eight stories, is distinguished by the range and diversity of the stories. The seemingly effortless invention of compelling characters entangled in unpredictable situations lends this book a vibrancy and vitality that's at once sophisticated and utterly natural. And though this is a collection of individual stories, there's an underlining drive of an intense single voice that gives this book a memorable force.” Stuart Dybek, MacArthur Fellow and author of Paper Lantern: Love Stories
Review
“Leslie Kirk Campbell's stories immerse you into a complete and layered world where her characters are suspended between self-destruction and rebirth. Hypnotic, strange, and lovely.”
Michelle Wildgen, author of Bread and Butter and You're Not You
Review
"Leslie Kirk Campbell's stories feature protagonists whose wisdom and wit and tenderness and patience and openness to existence cannot save them from trauma or anxiety or longing or the manic duplicities of love. These stories are masterful on the impossibility of negotiating implacably contradicting desires, and on the indivisibility of the personal and the political. The Man with Eight Pairs of Legs is a superbly accomplished and assured debut." Jim Shepard, author of The World to Come and Phase Six
About the Author
Leslie Kirk Campbell's short fiction has appeared in Ploughshares Solos and won awards at Arts & Letters, Southern Indiana Review, Briar Cliff Review and The Thomas Wolfe Review. The author of Journey into Motherhood (Riverhead), Leslie is the mother of two grown sons and teaches at Ripe Fruit Writing, a creative writing program she founded in San Francisco.