‘A wickedly inventive book, boysgirls is myth funneling into parables of self-recognition where the language is inventively spare, but tuned enough to lavish out its “Ah’s.” And mine.’ —Forrest Gander, Pulitzer Prize winner

‘In turns horrifying, hilarious, and awe-inspiringly gorgeous, boysgirls explores “the politics of metamorphosis”: change is the driving force of this fantastic, phantasmal book. Gender turns us all to monsters, deforms us, molds us into shapes we did not consent to—but also offers new (im)possibilities, new opportunities for change and transformation. In prose that defies the strict delineations of genre, Katie Farris makes space for characters that define themselves, discover their own power, refuse the names that are hurled at them like so many stones. These stories point toward the elsewhere, the maybe, the disconcerting unknown.’ —Chase Berggrun, author of R E D

“boysgirls is one for the classic fairy-tale shelves, joining Borges/Lispector, Calvino/Carter, Andersen/d’Aulnoy with its spectral powers. Katie Farris’s spare and lyrical language levitates here—she is a haunting and new revelation.” —Kate Bernheimer, author of Horse, Flower, Bird and editor of The Fairy Tale Review

“In this first collection, Katie Farris reminds us that ‘Times are hard for dreamers,’ only to go on to provide a number of vivid singularities… a storm of unexpected pleasures to be dreamed while awake.” —Rikki Ducornet, author of The Fanmaker’s Inquisition, winner of the Lannan Award

“These kaleidoscopic fictions have an astonishing delicacy. They spark and cascade and then burst again, changing shape and settling into surprising, entrancing patterns.” —Joanna Scott, author of Arrogance, winner of the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship

“At first glance, Katie Farris’s debut collection resembles an artifact recovered from an asylum… Yet unlike most metafiction, which calls attention to the fact that it is a fictional artifact, creating a space of irony, Farris’s conceit works to make these tales come alive, as myths, as dreams… Not for the faint of heart, these tales demand participation, almost becoming what they pretend to be: a madwoman’s illuminated dreams with the power to transfer madness to the reader. But a closer look reveals Farris’s carefully constructed comment on the dizzying madness of love and language, a reflective riddle, flashing from tale to tale.” —Mary McMyne, American Book Review

“A collection of modern myths or extended prose poems, boysgirls asks questions about the minutiae of enchantment and its attendant quotidian… [Farris] has constructed a chimerical work, more poetry than prose, a disordered mythology, a book of secrets almost told… and invents new myths from old… the palimpsest, the always erased, as the only thing that endures. Katie Farris will lead you. It will never be to where you think you are going or want to go, but you will need to go there, even to the precipice.” —Robert Lipton, Poetry Flash

“Farris insolently promises to provide fiction that you will be forced to react to, something unique, something you will want to keep reading—and then she insolently makes good on that promise.” —Debrah Lechner, Hayden’s Ferry Review

“boysgirls is an extraordinary book. Without exaggeration, reading it, I felt as if the top of my head was taken off, to use Emily Dickinson’s words. I love the experience and intensity of this language on the page, the dark magic fairy-tale world of it. I love how Farris can forge an eloquent lyricism out of a language that is stronger than cast iron. It is incredible.” —Malena Mörling, Guggenheim Fellow & author of Ocean Avenue

“These are twisted tales in a twisted form, texts that put everything at stake on language and teeter on the edge of an abyss familiar to readers of Blanchot, Kafka or Lispector. This is not freakishness for its own sake, but is in pursuit of what cannot be said any other way. Farris’ texts lurk below experience… casting a wider net by the slant of their approach… With this, her first book publication, Farris has emerged as a truly innovative writer.” —Stephan Delbos, Prague Post

“Farris has crafted, molded, sculpted stories that will enter our consciousness as effortlessly as tales of Mother Goose and the Brothers Grimm, because we already know them. And if Barthes had believed that myth ‘has the pretension of transcending itself into a factual system,’ Farris’s stories have come with no pretense. They are humble. Fluid. Introductory in a manner that professes only innocence—and with this innocence comes belief. And belief, we know, is all that’s required for myth, modern or not, to grab us tightly and carry us up into the sun.” —Micah McCrary, Bookslut

“… something of a little tour de force.” —Robert Coover