The Physics of Imaginary Objects » (1)

Tina May Hall is assistant professor of English at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. Her stories have appeared in 3rd Bed, Black Warrior Review, Quarterly West,  minnesota review, descant, the Collagist, and Water-Stone Review, among others. She is the author of the chapbook All the Day’s Sad Stories.

Winner of the 2010 Drue Heinz Literature Prize

This book offers a very different kind of short fiction, blending story with verse to evoke fantasy, allegory, metaphor, love, body, mind, and nearly every sensory perception.

Publishers Weekly

This enigmatic collection by Hall comprises curious musings on the convergence of the natural and human worlds. In "Visitations," dead squirrels are trapped in the wall of a pregnant woman's kitchen while the father of her baby is away. The smell of decay leads to paranoia and the suspicion that the father has cursed the house. "Skinny Girls' Constitution and Bylaws" is a humorously chilling list of girls whose "knees are castanets," who "chant Plath at school assemblies," and whose "job is to fasten ties around men's necks." "All the Day's Sad Stories," a novella, is about a superstitious married couple, Mercy and Jake, trying to conceive despite omens such as Jake's cookie lacking a fortune. Many of these selections, such as "By the Gleam of Her Teeth, She Will Light the Path Before Her," have quirky titles that deliver atmospheric and dreamlike stories sure to fascinate. (Sept.)

Visitations 1

Erratum: Insert "R" in "Transgressors" 13

Skinny Girls' Constitution and Bylaws 18

Kick 25

For Dear Pearl, Who Drowned 30

Faith Is Three Parts Formaldehyde, One Part Ethyl Alcohol 36

Last Night of the County Fair 42

A Crown of Sonnets Dedicated to Long-Gone Love 43

By the Gleam of Her Teeth She Will Light the Path Before Her 51

Gravetending 55

In Your Endeavors, You May Feel My Ghostly Presence 64

The Woman Who Fell in Love with a Meteorologist and Stopped the Rain 71

This Is a Love Story, Too 76

How to Remember a Bird 80

There Is a Factory in Sierra Vista Where Jesus Is Resurrected Every Hour in Hot Plastic and the Stench of Chicken 86

All the Day's Sad Stories: A Novella 97

Acknowledgments 147