The Bones of Garbo
Copyright © 2003
by Trudy Lewis
Ohio State University Press
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The Bones of Garbo rattles skeletons in the house of fiction. These stories revel in sexual experiment and
linguistic play. Lewis finds her subjects on the wrong side of the sheets and the tracks, in marginal neighborhoods where
characters confront the cost of motherhood, the mystery of desire and the pain of invasion, the meaning of race and tribe.
Ultimately, these seekers reach connection by way of confrontation. In “Waiting Period,” a couple creates their own
commitment ritual when they go together to take an AIDS test; in “Goddess Love,” a young woman struggles with an
otherworldly attraction toward her pagan roommate; in “All Hallow's Leaves,” an African American teenager meets
his demons in a fundamentalist haunted house. Lewis is relentless but compassionate, and her fiction mixes bitter herbs
and honey on the tongue. In the title story, "Bones of Garbo", a teenage girl aspiring to be an actress and undergoing
her first role as an ingénue, treats the reader to the life and loves of Greta Garbo as her own “coming of age” story
unfolds.
“From the “Marijuana Tree” to “Evacuation Route,” these stories are luminous and fanciful, but also grounded in the
all-too-real wounds and dramas that make up our regular come and go. The book brims with smart arresting observation.
— from the jacket
The Bones of Garbo is by turns playful and haunting, magical and real. Trudy Lewis has an amazing talent for turning a
detail until the commonplace becomes extraordinary and the strange becomes familiar. They fix us with a penetrating
light, and what we see are the shadow lives we lead. For this reason alone, The Bones of Garbo is necessary reading.
Trudy Lewis is a wise and wonderful writer, and her stories are unforgettable. — Lee Martin
These are very nervy, funny, wonderfully written stories. Trudy Lewis's work is a gift
and a pleasure. — Pam Durban
Like jazz improvisations, Trudy Lewis's stories take off into the complexities of the current
scene, exploring race and gender, the range of women's sexual experience. Her female
characters are wholly themselves in whatever they confront, and with her sharp
eye, ready wit, and wonderful talent for language, Lewis creates a dazzling array.
— Gladys Swan
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Private Correspondences
Copyright © 1994
by Trudy Lewis
Triquarterly/Northwestern UP
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This visceral, unforgettable first novel explores the dark awakening
of female sexuality in a violent male atmosphere of politics,
familial decay, and studied barbarism. ... Lewis is perceptive; her
vision is razor sharp in
slicing away the counterfeit differences separating victim from
abuser here. This is neither a suspense novel nor a horror thriller;
it is a brilliantly conceived account of the innocence and complicity
with
which a young woman enters a world of masculine fanaticism and abuse.
— Booklist
A nicely pointed first novel. — Kirkus Reviews
Winner of TriQuarterly's 1994 William Goyen prize for fiction, this powerful debut novel
explores the hidden niches of cruelty, lust, political corruption and misogyny. ...
With perfectly pitched dialogue and a story grounded in details of contemporary manners
and mores — from rock music to sexual harassment in the political arena — Lewis's
shattering study of sexual violence and individual vulnerability is both timely and
universally resonant. — Publishers Weekly
Private Correspondences is a moral thunderclap. ...
In prose that swings between lyrical moments of illumination
and gritty sexual insight, Lewis explores the dark heart of a
misogynist culture. Stark, powerful, impossible to forget,
Private Correspondences is a major work by a gifted
and thrilling new writer. — Midwest Book Review
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What the Critics Say
