Product Description

Largely set in the South, the eleven stories of Body Language guide us into the hidden worlds of the culture wars. The people in these stories belong to the fringes of society, struggling for an identity and a place to belong.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #486169 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Review
"In short, this is an amazing, urgent, vital book, and Kelly Magee is an exciting new literary talent." -- Dan Chaon, judge, and author of Among the Missing and You Remind Me of Me

"Ms. Magee is our newest soothsayer." -- Lee Abbott, author of Wet Places at Noon

"This debut collection will wake you up, provoke laughter and tears, and make you grateful to be human." -- Valerie Miner, author of Abundant Light and The Low Road

About the Author
After growing up in Orlando, Florida, KELLY MAGEE moved to Ohio, where she currently teaches and writes. Her stories have appeared in Indiana Review, Quarterly West, Crab Orchard Review, and others. She has won awards from the Associated Writing Programs and Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. She currently teaches at The Ohio State University–Marion and lives in Columbus.

Customer Reviews

An Electrifying Debut Collection
I loved this book of stories so much that it's difficult to know where to begin. Kelly Magee's characters are wonderfully complicated--strong, flawed, compelling, often brutally insightful, almost always sympathetic, and entirely believable. The American landscapes in which these stories take place--the Grand Canyon, New Orleans, the thick heat of Florida--manage to feel both fantastic and utterly recognizable. Perhaps best of all, this book is a tour de force of language. Magee's writing is vibrant, clear-eyed, imagistic, and original--hers is a voice you will want to return to again and again.

A New Vocabulary
This book is amazing! The collection of stories won the Katherine Anne Porter prize in short fiction for a good reason - Kelly Magee's skill as a storyteller. Her characters are complex and live complicated lives. Their world is harsh and beautiful, painful and magical, exhilarating, authentic, and accessible throughout this collection. Magee's language is sticky and sharp. Her prose utilizes the economy of words, keen sense of detail, and imagery of poetry. These stories are about being - being southern, an outsider, queer, subversive, and human. The stories make me think of Flannery O'Conner and William Faulkner but also of the photographs of James Agee and Diane Arbus. Magee tells you a story so vivid not only can you see it, you can feel it, too. I can't wait for more....

Boldest New Short Fiction 2006
This woman is fearless. She crafts people, topics, and points-of-view with an empathy few possess. The characters in this book are fighters--literally and figuratively. As they seek connection, words fail, and they rely on fists and lips (the body's language) to speak their desires and their fears. They fight lovers, gentrification, weather, neighbors, and themselves to carve out a space to call home. From them, we learn again and again to recognize the hope, dignity, and grace that continue to thrive in unlikely circumstances; we recognize the common needs that connect us all.