The lost boys of the Shirley Marie

Abstract

The Lost Boys of the Shirley Marie is a collection of fictional stories that veer toward the strange and inexplicable. These stories are often magical: boys on a ship stripped of their identities until enticing siren-like voices free them, a bleeding bush hides an age old secret, a waitress gives birth to a seal. There is, also, water in these stories -- ocean water, bath water, rain water. Even in the less magical pieces, there is a haunting strangeness: a woman jumps to her death, a beached whale rots at the edge of a town, a girl at fat camp befriends a boy who reveals to her his collection of taxidermy animals, dressed up as humans, including a troupe of banjo playing squirrels. Ultimately, these strange stories are thread together by marginalized characters, and by moments of human connection across language, memory, culture and circumstance.