First published 2002
The characters in these black comedies exist at society's margins, where reality shifts beneath their feet. Women carry invisible beards that mark them as outsiders, while the men around them navigate equally unstable ground. Each person battles the sense of being misplaced, as if they belong in a carnival sideshow rather than ordinary life. Their daily interactions reveal the gap between how things appear and what lies underneath. The stories follow these displaced individuals as they confront a world that never quite makes sense. Nothing operates according to expected rules, leaving everyone scrambling to find their footing. The women's hidden beards become symbols of the secrets everyone carries, the parts of themselves that don't match what others see. These characters share the experience of living perpetually out of sync with their surroundings. Their struggles illuminate the comedy and tragedy of feeling like performers in the wrong show, always slightly off beat with the rhythm around them.
Genres: short-stories, literary-fiction, contemporary, magical-realism
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, hidden-identity
360 pages · Paperback · Univ of Queensland Pr