In the tales gathered in An Agent of Utopia: New and Selected Stories
you will meet a Utopian assassin, an aging UFO contactee, a haunted
Mohawk steelworker, a time-traveling prizefighter, a yam-eating Zombie,
and a child who loves a frizzled chicken--not to mention Harry Houdini,
Zora Neale Hurston, Sir Thomas More, and all their fellow travelers
riding the steamer-trunk imagination of a unique twenty-first-century
fabulist.
From the Florida folktales of the perennial prison escapee Daddy Mention
and the dangerous gator-man Uncle Monday that inspired "Daddy Mention
and the Monday Skull" (first published in Mojo: Conjure Stories, edited
by Nalo Hopkinson) to the imagined story of boxer and historical bit
player Jess Willard in World Fantasy Award winner "The Pottawatomie
Giant" (first published on SciFiction), or the Ozark UFO contactees in
Nebula Award winner "Close Encounters" to Flannery O'Connor's childhood
celebrity in Shirley Jackson Award finalist "Unique Chicken Goes in
Reverse" (first published in Eclipse) Duncan's historical juxtapositions
come alive on the page as if this Southern storyteller was sitting on a
rocking chair stretching the truth out beside you.
Duncan rounds out his explorations of the nooks and crannies of history
in two irresistible new stories, "Joe Diabo's Farewell" -- in which a
gang of Native American ironworkers in 1920s New York City go to a show
-- and the title story, "An Agent of Utopia" -- where he reveals what
really (might have) happened to Thomas More's head.
