Bücher der Reihe Juniper Prize for Fiction

Exploring the darker side of optimism, Sarah Harris Wallman's debut collection shows women attempting to build durable havens from reality, struggling to keep relationships intact, and reinventing themselves. As these twelve stories prove, there's no sensible way to fall in love, raise children, or escape. This is Senseless Women.

During the War of 1812 thousands of enslaved people rallied to the British side, turning against an American republic that had barred them from the promises of freedom and democracy. Set against the backdrop of rebellion and war, this book follows the interconnected stories of Towerhill and Sarai, two African slaves, and their master, Jacob Hallam.

"Word spreads from one recovering self-inflicted eye surgery patient to the next of a mystical book capable of overturning the Burlingtonian empire. Captivating and devious, the book of webs is constructed out of misremembered fragments, conflicting histories, and secrets whispered in the darkness. The insurgents tell of an enemy so powerful it owns the air, dictates reality, and has even managed to co-opt their thoughts. Their only hope is to conspire with the uprisings of their bodies: slips of the tongue, excretions, tics, bad hair days, and, most importantly, their dreams. In this darkly comic and inventive debut novel, Jesse Kohn introduces a network of shape-shifters and misfits. A militant priestess broods over orphaned angel eggs. A post-punk band animates a messianic homunculus made of belly button lint. A failed dream journalist goes on a terrible first date to heaven. Each misadventure is a chapter in a book devised to oppose the despotic order of their enemy-the book of webs"--