"Deb Olin Unferth's stories are so smart, fast, full of heart, and
distinctive in voice--each an intense little thought-system going out
earnestly in search of strange new truths. What an important and
exciting talent."--George Saunders
For more than ten years, Deb Olin Unferth has been publishing
startlingly askew, wickedly comic, cutting-edge fiction in magazines
such as Granta, Harper's Magazine, McSweeney's, NOON, and The
Paris Review. Her stories are revered by some of the best American
writers of our day, but until now there has been no stand-alone
collection of her short fiction.
Wait Till You See Me Dance consists of several extraordinary longer
stories as well as a selection of intoxicating very short stories. In
the chilling "The First Full Thought of Her Life," a shooter gets in
position while a young girl climbs a sand dune. In "Voltaire Night,"
students compete to tell a story about the worst thing that ever
happened to them. In "Stay Where You Are," two oblivious travelers in
Central America are kidnapped by a gunman they assume to be an
insurgent--but the gunman has his own problems.
An Unferth story lures you in with a voice that seems amiable and
lighthearted, but it swerves in sudden and surprising ways that reveal,
in terrifying clarity, the rage, despair, and profound mournfulness that
have taken up residence at the heart of the American dream. These
stories often take place in an exaggerated or heightened reality, a
quality that is reminiscent of the work of Donald Barthelme, Lorrie
Moore, and George Saunders, but in Unferth's unforgettable collection
she carves out territory that is entirely her own.
