Women and Other Animals: Stories (Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction)

"These women of Michigan's lower peninsula may live without automotive safety belts or televisions or the right kind of love, but they are able to trust their instincts and are ultimately drawn to whatever can save them."--BOOK JACKET. "In "Sleeping Sickness" a twelve-year-old girl copes with the sexually charged atmosphere created by her mother's new boyfriend. In "Bringing Home the Bones" a woman must lose her leg before she can come to terms with her estranged daughters. In "Running" the narrator obsesses about the mating habits of birds and the promiscuity of her neighbor's daughter while her own fertility trickles away. In "Eating Aunt Victoria" a young woman finally looks into the face of her dead mother's lesbian lover. In "Shifting Gears" a man buys a new truck in order to get over his wife's leaving but can't stop thinking about the pregnant woman next door."--BOOK JACKET. The stories in this prizewinning debut collection encompass train wrecks, circus acts, river journeys, transspecies transmogrification, and growing up and growing old around the small towns of Michigan. Without glamorizing poverty, Bonnie Jo Campbell details a vision in which shabbiness, beauty, brutality, and wisdom all coexist -- and yet the stories can be surprisingly optimistic, often funny. In "Sleeping Sickness," a twelve-year-old copes with the sexually charged atmosphere at home by carefully tending her vegetable garden. In "Bringing Home the Bones," a farmer who prides herself on self-sufficiency must lose her leg before she can meet her estranged daughters halfway. In "Eating Aunt Victoria," a young woman finally looks into the face of her dead mother's lesbian lover. Campbell's hard-working, sometimes hard-drinking, women protagonists are both dangerous and vulnerable, living without seat belts or televisions or the right kind of love. Not surprisingly, the children in these stories often look beyond human role models to dogs, cows, and even gorillas. Women & Other Animals......Page 1 Acknowledgments......Page 4 Contents......Page 5 Circus Matinee......Page 6 Rhyme Game......Page 15 Gorilla Girl......Page 20 Old Dogs......Page 35 Eating Aunt Victoria......Page 39 Shotgun Wedding......Page 61 The Fishing Dog......Page 67 The Perfect Lawn......Page 91 The Sudden Physical Development of Debra Dupuis......Page 105 Sleeping Sickness......Page 114 Celery Fields......Page 130 Running......Page 140 Taking Care of the O'Learys......Page 148 Shifting Gears......Page 167 The Smallest Man in the World......Page 176 Bringing Home the Bones......Page 186 An anthology of stories on human relationships. The story, Eating Aunt Victoria, traces the relationship of teenagers and their mother's lesbian lover, while in Bringing Home the Bones an accident in which a woman loses a leg improves her relations with her children. A collection of stories about mothers, daughters, and animal kinship. The author draws on her observations of people growing up and growing old in the small towns of Michigan. THOUGH Big Joanie senses something is wrong, she does not turn to look at the tiger.