Amusing, touching, and unsettling, The Melancholy of Anatomy is that most wonderful of fictions, one that makes us see the world in an entirely new light. Here is the body turned inside out, its members set free, its humors released upon the world. Hearts bigger than planets devour light and warp the space around them; the city of London has a menstrual flow that gushes through its underground pipes; gobs of phlegm cement friendships and sexual relationships; and a floating fetus larger than a human becomes the new town pastor. In this debut story collection, Shelley Jackson rewrites our private passages, and translates the dumb show of the body into prose as gorgeous as it is unhygienic.
Author
Shelley Jackson is an American writer and artist known for her cross-genre experiments, including her hyperfiction, Patchwork Girl (1995). Her first novel was published in 2006, Half Life. In the late nineties, Jackson alternated hypertext work with writing short stories. She published her first short story collection, The Melancholy of Anatomy, in 2002. Jackson's first novel, Half Life, was published by HarperCollins in 2006. She currently teaches in the graduate writing program at The New School in New York City and at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee.[14]
