The Odditorium

Stories

By Melissa Pritchard
(Bellevue Literary Press, Paperback, 9781934137376, 252pp.)

Publication Date: January 2012

Categories: Literary, Short Stories (single author)

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Melissa Pritchard is a Flannery O’Connor, Janet Heidinger Kafka, and Carl Sandburg award-winning author whose two previous short fiction collections were New York Times Notable Book and Editor’s Choice selections. She has also been an embedded journalist in Afghanistan and is member of the Afghan Women’s Writing Project, which helps to promote literacy and education for Afghan women and girls. She lives in Arizona.

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An O, The Oprah Magazine Title to Pick Up Now & Oprah.com Book of the Week

“Emotionally rich.” —New York Times

“Weird and wonder-filled.” —Albuquerque Journal

“Display[s] the whimsy and intelligence of a writer at the height of her powers.” —Oprah.com

“Pritchard polishes the strange and makes it shine. . . . These are stories full of holy living creatures.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“[Pritchard] takes risks, different risks in different stories. Can she write a segment in the form of a comedic Shakespearean dialogue? She can. Does a story evolve into epistolary form? It does. Will she be able to build a story around the format of an old newspaper feature? She will. Can she do it all with poetic, vivid prose? With one hand tied behind her back. Is Melissa Pritchard someone whose short fiction should be well known? Do you even have to ask?” —Los Angeles Times

“Pritchard’s exuberant prose is perfectly suited to carry the antic freight of these often bizarre, always cerebral stories. . . . This is a fulsome compendium of ripping good yarns.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Any great writer does many things at once, of course, but most lead with a particular strength. And then there is Pritchard, who simply turns all the dials up to eleven. In [The Odditorium], more than in previous works, history gives her the best playing field for her considerable energies and produces some of her most moving and satisfying stories to date.” —IMAGE: Art, Faith, Mystery

“The rewards for a careful expedition into The Odditorium are unforgettable moments of timeless, resonant truth . . . Pritchard’s descriptive talents illuminate not just the emotional depths of her characters but humanity’s physical innards as well.” —Bookslut

“Very clever . . . all the stories carry undertones of darkness that will creep into your soul and plant their desperate seeds deep within.” —Historical Novels Review

“Reading Melissa Pritchard’s short-story collection The Odditorium is a bit like peering into a Wunderkammer, one of those magical cabinets where the rich and adventurous used to display their treasures. The beautiful, the grotesque. The odd, the charming. . . . Pritchard uses fiction to bring new life to these figures—some famous and mythologized, and others not—blending the historical and the fantastical to create a collection of great charisma.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Ladies and Gentlemen! Dreamers and Fools! Why not enter the fantastic world of wonders and horrors that is Melissa Pritchard’s The Odditorium…” —Phoenix New Times

“Melissa Pritchard’s The Odditorium is as strange, wonderful, and (most important) as much fun as anything good old Robert LeRoy Ripley could ever have envisioned. Passionate, bold imaginings that illuminate the darkest, most precious reaches of our lives. Believe it: these stories are a gift.” —PINCKNEY BENEDICT, author of Miracle Boy

“Melissa Pritchard has her GPS set to find the how it is—out there and in the heart—and she makes her way forward with her language on high alert. The prose is rhythmically astute, finely pitched, serving both imagination and witness.” —SVEN BIRKERTS, Editor of AGNI, author of The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age

“In this thrillingly protean collection of stories, Melissa Pritchard has done something profound. By imagining her way into historical moments and illuminating their shadows, she amplifies the music of history so we hear beautifully strange, wondrous notes we never knew were there. These stories resound with a fierce yet playful intelligence and a rare, magnificent generosity.” —MAUD CASEY, author of Genealogy

“The Odditorium is a dazzling wonderment, its cast drawn from the far-flung corners of history and imagination, its language crystalline and high-voltage, its stories fearless and even visionary. Here is an irresistible curiosity cabinet of the famous, the infamous, the mysterious, the half-forgotten—conjured with prodigious empathy, wit, and energy by one of our finest writers. Melissa Pritchard is a treasure and this book is her glorious trove.” —BRADFORD MORROW, author of The Diviner’s Tale and The Uninnocent

“Fueled by roofless imagination and fearless curiosity The Odditorium is a case study in how one writer’s wisdom and empathy transforms known facts of existence into something more than magic. Pritchard draws from the cold, deep well of myth, legend, and history to redefine what narrative can do. Each story is a lesson in compassion. Each story is nothing short of genius. Each story was written for you.” —GINA OCHSNER, author of The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight

“No one is quite so brilliant at voicing the all-but-impossible-to-track interior lives of the most complex human beings as is Melissa Pritchard . . . there is so much energy and inventiveness! Her linguistic flexibility is stunning, comic and gravely substantial. At its heart is always the troubled, often confused but courageous and tenacious human heart.” —BRAD WATSON, author of Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives and The Heaven of Mercury