Monstress (20 page)
Authors: Lysley Tenorio
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Fantasy, #Short Stories, #Short Stories (Single Author)
“What I love about Tenorio's stories is the absence of nudge-nudge-wink-wink faux-irony that imbues so much contemporary fiction writing grounded in pop culture. The films of Ed Wood echo in the title story, andâin other storiesâthe Green Lantern and the Beatles and psychic surgery charlatanism and the grotesque circus of Jerry-Springeresque talk shows. But these are the backdrops for dramas that are profoundly human and humane. Outsiders and oddballs, outcasts and rejectsâall are brought to vivid and affecting life in these stories. Tenorio never condescends, never goes for the easy joke or punch line. Tenorio's wit is understated; his writing is deft and self-assured; his dramas don't shout, but whisper, seductive and heartfelt.
Monstress
is one of the wisest and [most] heartfelt collections I've read. I've waited a long time for this book. To quote one of Tenorio's own characters: âJackpotâEureka! This is the real deal.'”
âDaniel Orozco, author of
Orientation and Other Stories
“In these fantastic stories, Tenorio skillfully blends the unlikely and the emotional, the bizarre and the humane. His writing portrays the universal human condition through unique specificity, and is very deserving of attention.”
âRishi Reddi, author of
Karma and Other Stories
“
Monstress
is an exhilarating rollercoaster of a book. Deeply funny, heartbreaking, hopeful, philosophical, bawdy, and wise, Tenorio's stories, written from the underbelly of the American Dream, present one brilliant portrait after another.”
âSabina Murray, PEN/Faulkner Awardâwinning author of
The Caprices
and
Tales of the New World
LYSLEY TENORIO's stories have appeared in
The Atlantic, Zoetrope: All-Story, Ploughshares, Manoa,
and
The Best New American Voices
and
The Pushcart Prize
anthologies. A winner of the Whiting Writer's Award and a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, he has received fellowships from the University of Wisconsin, Phillips Exeter Academy, Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Born in the Philippines, he currently lives in San Francisco and is an associate professor at Saint Mary's College of California.
Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
Cover design by Alison Forner
Cover art © by Picture Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publications in which these stories first appeared, in slightly different form: “Monstress” and “L'amour, CA” in
The Atlantic
; “Superassassin” in
The Atlantic
and
Best New American Voices 2001
; “The Brothers” in
Manoa
and
The Pushcart Prize 2006
; “Felix Starro” in
Zoetrope: All-Story
; “The View from Culion” in
The Chicago Tribune
; “Help” in
Ploughshares
and
Broken Umbrella
; “Save the I-Hotel” in
Manoa
and
Best New American Voices 2010
.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
MONSTRESS
. Copyright © 2012 by Lysley Tenorio. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN: 978-0-06-205956-7
EPub Edition © February 2012 ISBN: 9780062059604
12 13 14 15 16
OV/RRD
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022