Call Me Ahab: A Short Story Collection

Imagine a Hollywood encounter between Helen Keller and Frida Kahlo, "two female icons of disability." Or the story of "Moby Dick, or, The Leg," told from Ahab's perspective. What if Vincent Van Gogh resided in a twentieth-century New York hotel, surviving on food stamps and direct communications with God? Or if the dwarf pictured in a seventeenth-century painting by Velazquez should tell her story? And, finally, imagine the encounter between David and Goliath from the Philistine's point of view.

These are the characters who people history and myth as counterpoints to the "normal." And they are also the characters who populate Anne Finger's remarkable short stories. Affecting but never sentimental, ironic but never cynical, these wonderfully rich and comic tales reimagine life beyond the margins of "normality."

Anne Finger has taught creative writing at Wayne State University in Detroit and at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of several books, including Bone Truth: A Novel; Basic Skills: A Short Story Collection; and the memoir Elegy for a Disease: A Personal and Cultural History of Polio.

Author: Anne Finger
Publisher: Bison
Published: 09/01/2009
Pages: 206
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 8.38h x 5.58w x 0.45d
ISBN: 9780803225336

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 07/27/2009 pg. 40
Booklist 09/15/2009 pg. 28

About the Author
Anne Finger has taught creative writing at Wayne State University in Detroit and at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of several books, including Bone Truth: A Novel; Basic Skills: A Short Story Collection; and the memoir Elegy for a Disease: A Personal and Cultural History of Polio.