Amphibians

Winner of the Leapfrog Global Fiction Prize Amphibians invites further contemplation of female physicality--what it means to reside in a female form. An amphibious aircraft crashes in Maine, a young girl skinny-dips with her elders, a distraught cruise ship dancer boards a water taxi in Grenada, and travelers to Dubai and Abu Dhabi long for familiar oceans; back in New England, small-town artists try to smudge out their tedium with seaside transgressions. Amphibians celebrates home in a cross-cultural way, and the sensation of feeling not quite right in one's own skin, on land and near water, at home and abroad. From page one, Amphibians is the work of an extraordinary talent. How shrewd and compelling these stories are, as they range from Maine to New York to Japan to the Emirates and back. Their remarkable gift is to show us wisely and sharply the crucial contradictions of feeling in whatever unfolds, from passing encounters to long-held ties. Joan Silber, PEN/Faulkner and National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author ofImprovementand 2019 Leapfrog Global Fiction Prize judge