Stark and vibrant, the two halves of this sutured book expose the Frankenstein-like scars of the assemblage we call “human.” In “Another Governess” a woman in a decaying manor tries to piece together her own story. In “The Least Blacksmith” a man cannot help but fail his older brother as they struggle to run their father’s forge. Each of the stories stands alone, sharing neither characters nor settings. But together, they ask the same question: What are the wages of being? The relentless darkness of these tales is punctured by hope — the violent hope of the speaking subject

Melba Zuzzo, erstwhile innocent of the male-heavy hamlet of Dan, a town located in the foothills of … somewhere? … finds herself in a rut. In fact she was probably born into this rut, but today, for some reason, she feels suddenly aware of it. Everything is changing, yet nothing is making sense. The people she might rely upon, the habits she should find comforting — everything is off. It’s as if life, which has gone by largely unnoticed up to now, has been silently conspiring against her the whole time. In Dan, Joanna Ruocco has created a slapstick parable that brings together the restless undercurrents and unabashed campiness of Thomas Pynchon with the meandering imaginative audacity of Raymond Roussel. Either Dan is a state of mind, beyond the reach of any physical map, or else it sits on every map unnoticed, tucked beneath the big red dot that tells us YOU ARE HERE

Fiction. Mapping a utopia on the brink, THE MOTHERING COVEN's rare blend of charisma and pyrotechnic wordplay makes for an utterly original act of storytelling. Bertrand has disappeared from the house she shared with seven women-artists, scientists, and of course, witches. As the women plan a party for Mrs. Borage's hundredth birthday, Bertrand's absence threatens to dissolve the world they've created. "Deliriously imagined, THE MOTHERING COVEN is a work of wonder. Joanna Ruocco arrives: marvelous, and fully sprung!" — Carole Maso. "[A]n engagingly whimsical tale, graceful and inventive, with its own distinctive lexicon"-Robert Coover