Verging on the Pertinent

Stories ranging from surreal adventure to hilarious satire.

In this long awaited but nonetheless startling collection, Emshwiller uses tongue-in-cheek realism to explore the psychological make-up of contemporary women. Not afraid to stick their necks out, these stories force us to look at the ordinary domestic world and see it as truly skewed, odd, metaphorical, allegorical, satirical and fantastic.

Publication date: October 1, 1989

Format: Trade Paper

Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5

Page count: 144 pages

ISBN: 9780918273574

Carol Emshwiller is the author of Verging on the Pertinent and several science fiction novels. Her stories have been widely published in literary, feminist and science fiction magazines including the VLS, New Directions Annual, and TriQuarterly. Her work has also been selected for the Pushcart Prize XII and awarded the 1989 Accent Fiction Prize. In 2005, she received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. She taught fiction writing at New York University for many years, and retired in 2003. She now lives in New York and California.

“Carol Emshwiller’s imagination is fierce and funny, never mean. She creates people, situations, and combinations of words that make me read her sentences and paragraphs again and again for the sheer pleasure of reading.”

—Grace Paley

“Carol Emshwiller must be read, watched for, nurtured as an original and exciting new talent.”

—Ms. Magazine

“Carol Emshwiller’s stories are always a surprise and a delight. She has a wonderfully brash, funny, and original talent.”

—Hilma Wolitzer

“In her stories, Carol Emshwiller pushes every definition to the point where we would expect it to dissolve into its antonym—but it doesn’t. It survives—even improves.”

—The New York Times