Organ Meats

Informationen zum Autor K-Ming Chang is a Kundiman fellow, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree. She is the author of the novel Bestiary , which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Klappentext In the phenomenal Organ Meats , two friends are bound by a red string, dog bloodlines, and the violence that is being a girl ( Ms. magazine)from the National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree and author of Gods of Want. Organ Meats possesses something of the febrile intensity of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels, their laser focus on female friendship, but instead of Naples, K-Ming Chang's wild girls inhabit a magical universe of talking dogs and shape-shifting body parts. The New York Times (Editors' Choice) LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST • AN AUTOSTRADDLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Best friends Anita and Rainie find refuge by an old sycamore tree with its neighboring lot of stray dogs who have a mysterious ability to communicate with humans. The girls learn that they are preceded by generations of dog-headed women and woman-headed dogs whose bloodlines bind them together. Anita convinces Rainie to become a dog with her, tying a collar of red string around each of their necks to preserve their kinship forever. But when the two girls are separated, Anita sinks into a dreamworld that only Rainie knows how to rescue her from. As Anita's body begins to rot, it is up to Rainie to rebuild Anita's body and keep her friend from being lost forever. Filled with ghosts and bodily entrails, this is a story about the horror and beauty of intimacy, written in K-Ming Chang's signature poetic and visceral lore. Leseprobe Disparate Girls Discover that Doghood Is Not the Opposite of Godhood, and Anita Hsia Recounts the Ox-Boned Origin of Her Family Residence In the center of summer, soft with rot, Rainie and I decide to be dogs. Cousin Vivian says you can't be a dogpack with only two dogs, Rainie and me, but I say she forgot to count our shadows, Rainie and me plus two shadows, which makes four dogs, which is a lot of dogs. The dogs we know are strays, and they always travel in pairs or in sixes, and they sometimes get hit by cars and crows pluck the meat from their bones, though mostly they leave the bodies of the dogs alone, because there isn't much meat on them. I decide that being a dog requires three main things: First, that we drink with our tongues, which is easy, because I drink out of bowls anyway, ever since Abu decided to grow flowers in all our glasses. The second thing is that we must have collars, because we are not strays. We belong to each other. We cannot be strays, because our ribs are not visible, mostly because we wear shirts. And we have names, mostly because we have mothers. Also, strays stink and have fleas, and we are required to bathe, though one time Rainie got bedbugs and she and her brothers wore rashes as long as capes down their backs and then Vivian and I got them too and Abu burned our sheets, bleached the carpeting. I halo Rainie's neck with red thread from Abu's sewing kit and make a knot where she swallows, then tie a symmetrical thread around my neck. Now we're collared together, I say. I get the knot right only on the second try: The first time, Rainie's neck turns to steam, and I can't get the thread to grip anything. There is something in her that resists it, that doesn't want to bind herself to me. She lives by flitting. Even when she stands on the wrinkled pavement in front of me, she shifts from foot to foot like she's surfing something, turning the street into a sea she'll ride away from me. Rainie tugs at the thread, tries to wedge a thumb between the knot and her skin, but I tell her it has to fit us snug as a bloodlin...

Autorentext

K-Ming Chang is a Kundiman fellow, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree. She is the author of the novel Bestiary, which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award.

Klappentext

*“In the phenomenal Organ Meats, two friends are bound by a red string, dog bloodlines, and the violence that is being a girl” (Ms. magazine)—from the National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree and author of Gods of Want.*

“Organ Meats possesses something of the febrile intensity of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, their laser focus on female friendship, but instead of Naples, K-Ming Chang’s wild girls inhabit a magical universe of talking dogs and shape-shifting body parts.”—The New York Times (Editors’ Choice)

LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST • AN AUTOSTRADDLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

Best friends Anita and Rainie find refuge by an old sycamore tree with its neighboring lot of stray dogs who have a mysterious ability to communicate with humans. The girls learn that they are preceded by generations of dog-headed women and woman-headed dogs whose bloodlines bind them together. Anita convinces Rainie to become a dog with her, tying a collar of red string around each of their necks to preserve their kinship forever. But when the two girls are separated, Anita sinks into a dreamworld that only Rainie knows how to rescue her from. As Anita’s body begins to rot, it is up to Rainie to rebuild Anita’s body and keep her friend from being lost forever. 

Filled with ghosts and bodily entrails, this is a story about the horror and beauty of intimacy, written in K-Ming Chang’s signature poetic and visceral lore.

Leseprobe
Disparate Girls Discover that Doghood Is Not the Opposite of Godhood, and Anita Hsia Recounts the Ox-Boned Origin of Her Family Residence

In the center of summer, soft with rot, Rainie and I decide to be dogs. Cousin Vivian says you can’t be a dogpack with only two dogs, Rainie and me, but I say she forgot to count our shadows, Rainie and me plus two shadows, which makes four dogs, which is a lot of dogs. The dogs we know are strays, and they always travel in pairs or in sixes, and they sometimes get hit by cars and crows pluck the meat from their bones, though mostly they leave the bodies of the dogs alone, because there isn’t much meat on them. I decide that being a dog requires three main things: First, that we drink with our tongues, which is easy, because I drink out of bowls anyway, ever since Abu decided to grow flowers in all our glasses. The second thing is that we must have collars, because we are not strays. We belong to each other. We cannot be strays, because our ribs are not visible, mostly because we wear shirts. And we have names, mostly because we have mothers. Also, strays stink and have fleas, and we are required to bathe, though one time Rainie got bedbugs and she and her brothers wore rashes as long as capes down their backs and then Vivian and I got them too and Abu burned our sheets, bleached the carpeting. I halo Rainie’s neck with red thread from Abu’s sewing kit and make a knot where she swallows, then tie a symmetrical thread around my neck.

Now we’re collared together, I say. I get the knot right only on the second try: The first time, Rainie’s neck turns to steam, and I can’t get the thread to grip anything. There is something in her that resists it, that doesn’t want to bind herself to me. She lives by flitting. Even when she stands on the wrinkled pavement in front of me, she shifts from foot to foot like she’s surfing something, turning the street into a sea she’ll ride away from me. Rainie tugs at the thread, tries to wedge a thumb between the knot and her skin, but I tell her it has to fit us snug as a bloodline or else we can’t be synonyms.

The third thing is that we must…