Orange World

This book presents eight of the author's short stories. In "Bog Girl: A Romance," a story about first love, a young man falls in love with a two thousand year old girl that he's extracted from a mass of peat in a Northern European bog. In "The Prospectors," two opportunistic young women fleeing the Depression strike out for new territory, and find themselves fighting for their lives. In the title story, a new mother desperate to ensure her infant's safety strikes a diabolical deal, agreeing to breastfeed the devil in exchange for his protection. The landscape in which these stories unfold is a feral, slippery, purgatorial space, bracketed by the void - yet within it, the author captures the tenderness of ordinary life.--adapted from book jacket.