Drenched

Passion engulfs all in these wildly imaginative stories filled with "a textured beauty" (Aimee Bender). Two lovers accidentally create a love potion while making a batch of Jell-O. An apartment is filled with water as an act of gravity-defying devotion to an acrobat. At turns blissful, absurd, sexy, and devastating, Marisa Matarazzo's stories don't just push the boundaries of love--they show how very boundless it is. These interconnected shorts take love to a new level--another world, where a sex fever can sweep a town and where sex acts are performed tied to the raised mast of a sailboat. Falling into love, swimming, and drowning in it, the characters often exist in places where land and water collide and morph. A girl without hands is rescued from the sea by an oil-rig worker. A boy transplants a fish into the body of a menacing neighbor. A woman on the rebound has an unexpected encounter with an otherworldly water engineer. Fusing magical realism and fantasy with the heart of the here and now, Matarazzo has established a singular style. As she shifts effortlessly among startling plotlines and peculiar characters, she celebrates the fluid sorcery of love--in its ardor, its ugliness, all of its uncanny and magnificent manifestations, proclaiming love the most wondrous magic of all.