Synopses & Reviews
"I talk like a lady who knows what she wants" is how the vagrant begins her story in "Trailer Girl". As she struggles to rescue what she says is a wild girl hiding in the gully, the neighbors become more certain than ever that the child is imaginary until there's a murder. Stark and disturbing, "Trailer Girl" is the story of cycles of child abuse and the dream to escape them.
In "Psychic", a clairvoyant knows she's been hired by a murderer, in "Leadership" a tiny spaceship lands between a boy and his parents, in "Venice", a woman performs the Heimlich maneuver on an ex-husband, then flees by gondola, and in "White", a grandfather explains to his grandson how a family is like a collection of chicken parts. Frequently violent, always passionate, these often short short stories are full-strength, as strong and precise as poetry.
Review
"Svoboda's subject is human suffering, and she bends language to her will in spare and oblique prose." Booklist
Review
"[P]owerful cutting-edge literary fiction." Library Journal
Review
"Disturbing, edgy and provocative, this collection will appeal to lovers of nontraditional prose." Book Magazine
About the Author
Terese Svoboda's Cannibal was selected by Spin magazine as one of the ten best novels of 1994, and was hailed as a "women's Heart of Darkness" by Vogue. Svoboda is also the author of the 1999 novel A Drink Called Paradise, and three books of poetry, All Aberration, Laughing Africa, and Mere Mortals. She lives with her family in New York City.