Nice Big American Baby Book

A blazingly original, profoundly moving new work of fiction by a writer whose worldâ??and imaginationâ??knows no boundaries. â??I donâ??t know what planet Judy Budnitz comes from,â? said Newsweek on the publication of her fiction debut, Flying Leap, â??but Iâ??m happy to have her. Tremendous . . . funny, dark, adventurous, slanted, and enchanted.â? These twelve astonishingly inventive storiesâ??which take us into the heart of America and around the globe, from suburban backyards and swimming pools to war-torn streets and fallout sheltersâ??are riveting, seductive, and impossible to forget.In â??Flush,â? a mammogram prompts a dark comedy of blurred identities between a mother and her two adult daughters. In â??Elephant and Boy,â? a surrogate mother-and-son bond, tinged with the erotic, is formed when a philanthropist attempts to â??civilizeâ? a young elephant handler. â??Nadiaâ? sounds the depths of a young womanâ??s complex feelings toward a friendâ??s mail-order bride from Eastern Europe. â??Preparednessâ?â??an Orwellian tale in Technicolorâ??imagines rapture in the wake of imminent apocalypse. And in â??Where We Come From,â? a pregnant womanâ??s many failed attempts to cross the border do not lessen her resolve to give birth on U.S. soil to a â??nice big American baby.â?Magical, poignant, often transcendent, these are virtuoso modern fables that mine our stores of hidden urges, misunderstandings, and blind passions, inviting us on a voyage through places and times at once deeply familiar and wondrously strange.Read More