Your Body is Changing: Stories

Glittering with mischief and perversity, Pushcart Prize'winner Jack Pendarvis's latest collection introduces readers to a world of losers poised on the brink of all sorts of disaster'a world only a wink and a nod away from our own. In the title novella a fundamentalist teenager must single-handedly confront the horrors of a spiritual quest filled with secular humanists, an apocalyptic folk artist, and a couple of movie stars. The other stories deal poignantly with ? among other things ? a young millionaire pretending to be a detective, Alabamians getting violent in a New York bar, the good folks who invented the diarrhea-inducing chewing gum, a man who becomes an impromptu drug mule, magnetic healers, and a candidate's unfortunate stump speech. Underlying each comedic gem and neurotic twist is an intelligence and empathy rarely found in modern satire. Like the best guidebooks, Your Body Is Changing will invite you in with its zany humor and indict you with its moving truths.