{"product_id":"wide-eyed-9781888451863","title":"Wide Eyed","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn Trinie Dalton's tweaked vision of reality, psychic communications between herself and Mick Jagger, The Flaming Lips, Marc Bolan, Lou Reed, and Pavement are daily occurrences. Animals also populate this book: beavers, hamsters, salamanders, black widows, owls, llamas, bats, and many more are characters who befriend the narrator. This collection of stories is told by a woman compelled to divulge her secrets, fantasies, and obsessions with native Californian animals, glam rock icons, and horror movies, among other things. With a setting rooted in urban Los Angeles but colored by mythic tales of beauty borrowed from medieval times, Shakespeare, and Grimm's fairy tales, \u003cem\u003eWide Eyed\u003c\/em\u003e makes the difficulties of surviving in a contemporary American city more palatable by showing the reader that magic and escape is always possible.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eStories include \"Hummingbird Moonshine,\" in which the narrator's frustrated hunt for authentic religion in botanicas and science books culminates in a spiritual connection made with a hummingbird. In \"Oceanic,\" she resolves to marry a manatee after a drunken pre-party for her best friend's wedding. In \"Tiles,\" four vignettes about bloody accidents in tiled bathrooms intermingle with scenes from Dalton's favorite scary movies.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFeaturing oddball prose in the traditions of Dalton's literary heroes-Denton Welch, Robert Walser, and Jane Bowles-these stories have a dreamy, imaginative quality that reveal a peculiar state of mental ecstasy. To be inside the mind of Trinie Dalton is to be escorted into bliss.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTrinie Dalton grew up in Los Angeles, and has an MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars. She writes music, book, and art criticism in addition to fiction. The book she co-edited for McSweeney's, Dear New Girl, is also forthcoming. Dennis Cooper is the author of 'The George Miles Cycle, ' an interconnected sequence of five novels published in the US by Grove Press and translated into fourteen languages. His most recent novel is God, Jr. (Grove, 2005). He lives in Los Angeles.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Akashic Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50363515076882,"sku":"9781888451863","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_2e8ecf7c-7ff1-4f26-b701-35d1b28dada3.jpg?v=1728417252","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/wide-eyed-9781888451863","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}