Jeffrey Ford
From AwardAnnals
Information about the author.
Works
- 5 works
- Show titles only
The Girl in the Glass: A Novel
Jeffrey Ford
The Great Depression has bound a nation in despair—and only a privileged few have risen above it: the exorbitantly wealthy…and the hucksters who feed upon them. Diego, a seventeen-year-old illegal Mexican immigrant, owes his salvation to master grifter Thomas Schell. Together with Schell’s gruff and powerful partner, they sail comfortably through hard times, scamming New York’s grieving rich with elaborate, ingeniously staged séances—until an impossible occurrence changes everything.
While “communing with spirits,” Schell sees an image of a young girl in a…
Jeffrey Ford
Mixing the mundane with the metaphysical, the pairings of the everyday and the extraordinary in this collection of short fiction yield supernatural results—a young musician perceives another world while drinking coffee, a fairy chronicles his busy life in a sandcastle during the changing tide, a demonic 16th-century chess set shows up in a New Jersey bar, and Charon, the boatman of hell, takes a few days vacation. Storylines both conventional and outlandish reveal humdrum routines as menacing, or imaginary worlds as perfectly familiar. Allusions to authors such as Edgar Allan Poe and Jules Verne reinforce the fantasy tradition in these tales, while understated humor and moments of sadness add a quirky unpredictability.
The Fantasy Writer's Assistant and Other Stories
Jeffrey Ford
At times literary, at other times surreal, this collection offers an eclectic group of stories that deal with real-life conflicts, human values, and coming-of-age experiences all placed within fantastical settings. One tale recounts the author’s search for a Kafka story that can only be found in an elusive and quite possibly cursed edition. Other stories feature humans dressing in full-body protective exoskins in the personas of old Hollywood movie stars to barter old Earth movies for an alien aphrodisiac and a young boy coming to terms with creation and molding…
Jeffrey Ford
At once luxurious and disturbing, this stunning novel presents a major new fabulist whose richly textured prose brings to mind such works as Franz Kafka’s In the Penal Colony, George Orwell’s 1984, and other classics terrifying beauty.
He pries open the soul with each sweep of his calipers. For in the land of the Well-Built City, study of the body’s shape is a most exacting science. It can determine a person’s character, uncover his deepest secrets, even foretell the future. And in the hands of an expert like Physiognomist Cley, this solemn…
The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque: A Novel
Jeffrey Ford
The toast of 1893 New York society, the portraitist Piero Piambo has his pick of choice assignments. Acclaimed by his peers and his “betters,” he is a fixture in the city’s most opulent salons, yet he fears he has sold his soul to arrive there. But then comes a commission unlike any other—one that will test Piambo’s talents, his will…and his sanity.
The client is a Mrs. Charbuque, and the offer she makes to the artist is as bizarre and intriguing as it is financially rewarding. Piambo must paint the lady’s portrait, and for the service he may name any price.…
- 5 works
- Show titles only
