Near Flesh

A collection of stories about motherhood, violence, and desire, from the cult icon Katherine Dunn, the author of Geek Love. A woman invests in a series of sex robots to get herself off and comes to terms with the limitations—and real threat—of automated companionship. A young student pursues an affair with an older man, the poet in residence at the university where she studies writing and weighs the benefits and costs of their arrangement.

A mother moves to a farm with her family and battles the violence simmering beneath her skin. Near Flesh is the first and only collection of short fiction by the late Katherine Dunn, the beloved author of the bestselling novel Geek Love. These nineteen stories are attuned to the spit and grit of tough living.

They pulse with yearning for a more prosperous life, for sexual satisfaction, for escape from abusive husbands and the disappointments of convention. A better life, for these mostly female protagonists, seems always just out of reach. In Near Flesh, Dunn explores the struggles of women to live on their own terms, and the desire to relish—rather than quash—what makes a person wholly singular and vibrantly alive.