A collection of short fiction inspired by the 2015 opiod-fueled HIV epidemic in Austin, Indiana, as well as rapid economic and social change. Located somewhere in the rust belt in the early twenty-first century, residents in The Town of Whispering Dolls dream of a fabled and illusory past even as new technologies reshape their world into something new and unsettling.
Calling on the image of the Midwest's vanished inland sea, this collection of essays ponders the writing process and the "landlocked imagination."
Memoir and meditation on writing
Winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction
We are a nation of consumers. In this meditation of manufacture, Susan Neville journeys to factories in the heart of the midwest, looking for the sources of things.
"Susan Neville's language shimmers like light coming through colored glass, and her subtle words uncovered the inarticulate longings that burn the hearts of the most ordinary citizens. Susan Neville is one of the finest short story writers in the country." Maura Stanton