The Body - A Novel

"Matt Dojny's novel is a true delight. I can't think of any writer since Kingsley Amis who's been able to write high-minded comedy that packs such a punch. I've never enjoyed a comic novel more."—John Wray, author of Lowboy, The Right Hand of Sleep, and Canann's Tongue

The Festival of Earthly Delights is a humorous bildungsroman set in the fictional Southeast Asian country of Puchai. The protagonist, Boyd Darrow, has recently moved there with his unfaithful girlfriend to give their relationship a second chance. His adventures, and misadventures, are relayed in a series of letters to a mysterious recipient.

February 19 8:23 AM

Dear Hap:

A new position falls into the hands of one who, living, dreams. I bought this notebook in the airport when we arrived in Puchai, and, instead of keeping a journal—which always feels lonely and pointless to me—I've decided to write you a letter. IT WILL COME TRUE.

Ulla and I are in the Central Dakhong Railway Station, waiting for the 12:13 train to Mai Mor. The station is rumbling and hot and cavernous and painted floor-to-ceiling in volcanic orange. Ulla has wandered off in search of a bathroom and I'm sitting on a bench, guarding our bags. And—where are you?

Matt Dojny lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, new baby, and dog. He is currently a graphic designer for Scholastic Books, and recently co-authored an illustrated essay called "Impossible Sightseeing" in A Public Space.

"Startling, unclassifiable. . . Full of mysteries — all originating in its characters’ troubled psyches — and full of terrors that can’t be explained."—New York Times

Shirley Jackson Award winner.

Praise for Elizabeth Hand’s previous novels:

“Inhabits a world between reason and insanity—it’s a delightful waking dream.”—People

“One of the most sheerly impressive, not to mention overwhelmingly beautiful books I have read in a long time.”—Peter Straub

Cass Neary made her name in the 1970s as a photographer embedded in the burgeoning punk movement in New York City. Her pictures of the musicians and hangers on, the infamous, the damned, and the dead, got her into art galleries and a book deal. But thirty years later she is adrift, on her way down, and almost out. Then an old acquaintance sends her on a mercy gig to interview a famously reclusive photographer who lives on an island in Maine. When she arrives Downeast, Cass stumbles across a decades-old mystery that is still claiming victims, and into one final shot at redemption.

Elizabeth Hand grew up in New York State. In 1975 she moved to Washington, DC, to study playwriting at Catholic University. After seeing Patti Smith perform, Hand flunked out and became involved in the DC and New York City nascent punk scenes. From 1979 to 1986 she worked at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum; she returned to university to study cultural anthropology, and received her BA in 1985. The author of seven previous novels and the recipient of a Maine Arts Commission and an NEA Fellowship, she is a regular contributor to The Washington Post Book World. Hand lives with her family on the Maine coast.