Description: "El Huge" reveals how small-town, small-time teens can accomplish Big Ugly Things on their own. "Big Girl" chronicles the media's fascination with the towering anxieties of a sixty-foot tall teen. "The Pill," the collection's previously unpublished centerpiece, celebrates a "miracle cure" for obesity that sends society to a grimly delightful new utopia. "With Such People in It," also new to readers, welcomes us to a brave new world where cowardice is a virtue. "Gone with Gone with the Wind" is a nonfiction analysis of privilege, denial, literary classics, and personal honesty. "Afterimage" is a one-way trip into a VR world that's more "real" than our own. Also included is "Guts," which is about just what its title suggests, as well this volume's characteristically frank and thought-provoking Outspoken Interview."--Provided by publisher.
Brief description:
Meg Elison is a San Francisco Bay Area author. Her debut novel, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife won the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award and was a Tiptree longlist mention that same year. It was reissued in 2016 and was on the Best of the Year lists from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, PBS, and more. Her second novel was also a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award. Elison was the spring 2019 Clayton B. Ofstad endowed distinguished writer-in-residence at Truman State University, and is a coproducer of the monthly reading series Cliterary Salon.
Review Quotes:
"There's nothing better for writing a novel than rage," says Meg Elison, one of science fiction's fearless new "bad girls" who delight in the transgressive, and who dares gainsay her? Her debut novel won the Philip K. Dick award and led off a series that has lodged her on the Tiptree shortlist. She's already too big to go unnoticed.
Her stories contain both rage and humor in an effective if uneasy mix. As droll as it is tall, "Big Girl" applies journalism's clueless prose to the hormonal horrors of growing up. First published here, "Such People in It" celebrates the courage of cowardice in nightclubbing and life. Our almost-novella "The Pill" promises to change women's lives as much as The Pill itself did, only this capsule comes complete with screams. "El Hugé" is an explosive new take on teen romance. "Gone with Gone with the Wind" explores the varieties of privilege in late Confederate America. Then of course there's "Guts." Turns out you either got 'em or you don't. And in "Sprawling into the Unknown," our intriguingly Outspoken Interview, Nell Zink, lesbian gun clubs, and Asimov's unwelcome advances all fly economy class.