What I Didn't See

"Gripping from the start... We are can never be sure where we are or what each page might bring. This is eclectic approach to a collection is exciting, and steers us away from the safer approach that many other collections take. "--The Short Review "[Fowler] refuses to engage fantastic elements in an expected way, often confining them to the edges of a story, leaving the choice of how real a character's perception is to the reader. Her work reflects how strange and unpredictable life is, how difficult--perhaps impossible--to fully understand."--Gwenda Bond, Subterranean Online "Because of this range and because of the plain high literary quality of so many of its stories, What I Didn't See would provide an excellent introduction to Fowler's work if you've somehow managed to remain unacquainted with it."--Strange Horizons "An exceptionally versatile author ... Fowler has "the best possible combination of imagination and pragmatism," as she applies unique narratives into carefully crafted structures."--St. Louis Post-Dispatch "In all these stories, Fowler ("Sarah Canary," "The Jane Austen Book Club") delights in luring her readers from the walks of ordinary life into darker, more fantastical realms. There, as one of her characters remarks, "Your eyes no longer impose any limit on the things you can see." ... Fowler's closing story, "King Rat," is a masterpiece. Reading more like a personal essay than fiction, it pays eloquent tribute to "the two men I credit with making me a writer." Here's a volume that serves as a fine introduction to Fowler, if you haven't come across her before--and one that will deeply satisfy fans who've been with her from the beginning."--Seattle Times "That rare writer who can match the power of her novels with the power of her short stories. She works in the world of myth with great ease. We feel, reading her stories, that we are in our world, but some portion of it that connects vitally with everything else. What happens here is gripping, important, compelling, and often terrifying. Her new collection of stories, 'What I Didn't See' offers readers perfect renderings of a New American Mythos"--Rick Kleffel, The Agony Column "Karen Joy Fowler takes the short story in directions readers could never anticipate, and her latest collection from the wonderful Small Beer Press, What I Didn't See: Stories, offers up numerous delights for the smart and creative reader. From the wham-bang start of "The Pelican Bar" to the Hemingway-esque title story, Fowler takes you from the past to the future in stories that feature speculative fiction elements, or are starkly true to life. Cast your preconceived notions aside and settle in to explore the human mysteries Fowler mines with abandon. This is literature at its most intriguing, and a reminder of how bold and daring a gifted writer can be."--Colleen Mondor, Bookslut "The practicality of her views is what makes them upsetting, a reminder how tragedies great and small affect people everyday even if we aren't privy to them. And that is where Fowler succeeds -- even if her brutal boarding houses or Congolese misadventures aren't real to us, post-traumatic stress disorder is. All of her narrators are survivors, and they tell their stories in blunt, practical ways we imagine they need to protect themselves."--For Books' Sakes "Fowler cements her place in fiction history--genre or otherwise--not because of her fancy tricks but through sheer technique and her excellence in characterization."--Charles Tan, Bibliophile Stalker "Witty and humane."--Cascadia Subduction Zone "The bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club goes genre-busting in this engrossing and thought-provoking set of short stories that mix history, sci-fi, and

Karen Joy Fowler: Karen Joy Fowler is the author of six novels including Booker Prize finalist and international bestseller We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Wit's End, and The Jane Austen Book Club -- which spent thirteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, was a New York Times Notable Book, and was adapted as a major motion picture from Sony Pictures. Her novel Sister Noon was a finalist for the 2001 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction, and her short story collection Black Glass won the World Fantasy Awards. Fowler and her husband, who have two grown children, live in Santa Cruz, California.

Table of Contents The Pelican Bar Booths Ghost The Last Worders The Dark Always Familiar Birds Private Grave 9 The Marianas Islands Halfway People Standing Room Only What I Didnt See King Rat