In the fantastical spirit of Donald Barthelme and Aimee Bender, Shelley Jackson’s début story collection creates delirious worlds populated by overgrown pieces and products of the human body. Turning the body inside out and releasing its elements and humors, Jackson exposes the disturbing and wondrous elements of being fully human. Her marvelously strange fictions include the city of London with a monthly menstrual flow; gobs of phlegm that cement friendships and sexual relationships; and a floating foetus that becomes the new town pastor. Jackson uses these corporeal fantasies and her nimble language to probe and pry at emotions from revulsion to love to guilt, forcing her characters to confront their fears and failures.“She erases the boundaries between body and self, secretion and shedding, love and loathing, enveloping the reading in a slippery, icky, fascinating world.”–The Village Voice Literary Supplement, “Writers on the Verge”