And Then You Apply Ice

Finalist, 2024 American Fiction Award, American Bookfest

An eight-year-old beauty pageant winner experiences objectification on a summer camp stage. A middle-aged single mother watches her boyfriend, a cosmetic surgeon, suction liquid fat out of a patient, confronting her own insecurities about appearance, worth and love. Through a slit in a door, an eyeball tracks the comings and goings of its neighbor, a young interior designer who is robbed in the walkup apartment across the hall. A Dixie Mafia don pushes a television reporter to question her ethics. Two dogs discover intertwined feet under a dinner party table and struggle to reveal the infidelity to their preferred human parent.

The women and girls in these twenty-one stories encounter hurt-to their emotions, bodies, beliefs and ideas-confronting who they are or will become. Their predicaments reveal the subtleties of human interaction, the power in one's decisions and ultimately, the complex resilience that imbues women's lives. A captivating look at managing transgression, the collection is an honest, funny and astute portrayal of the female experience.