Your Body Is Changing — Jack Pendarvis

Glittering with mischief and perversity, Pushcart Prize-winner Jack Pendarvis s latest collection introduces readers to a world of dreamers poised on the brink of all sorts of disaster a world only a wink and a nod away from our own. In the title novella a fundamentalist teenager must single-handedly confront the challenges of a spiritual quest involving secular humanists, an apocalyptic folk artist, and his own misguided hormones. The other stories deal poignantly with among other things a young millionaire pretending to be a detective, the good folks who invented the diarrhea-inducing chewing gum, and a tollbooth operator who becomes an impromptu drug mule. Underlying each comedic gem and neurotic twist is an intelligence and empathy rarely found in modern satire. Your Body Is Changing will invite you in with its zany humor and indict you with its moving truths.