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With her singular mix of surrealism, musical prose, and keenly felt emotions, Aimee Bender has gained a passionate following among readers and critics. The San Francisco Chronicle greeted her first story collection with rapturous praise, declaring, “Once in a while a writer comes along who makes you grateful for the very existence of language.” Her debut novel was called “as light as a zephyr and unique as a snowflake” (The Washington Post),“a seductively smart read” (Glamour), and “surreal, edgy, and endearing all at once” (USA TODAY). Bender is a brilliant stylist, using language with the nimble grace of a magician. She conjures surreal worlds in which authentic emotion blooms. A woman’s children may be potatoes, but the love she feels for them is heartbreakingly real. A boy with keys as fingers is seen not as a freak but as a hero. Bender infuses even inanimate objects with human warmth. Rendering grief, loneliness, hope, love, and happiness with exquisite subtlety and cleverness, Bender once again proves herself to be a masterful chronicler of the human condition.