Verse Chorus Press is proud to announce the publication of a new edition of Stacey Levine’s novel FRANCES JOHNSON. Originally published by Clear Cut Press in 2005, the book has been out of print for some time. This is a completely new edition, revised by the author, retypeset, and printed in 5" x 8" trade paperback format with a new cover.

“It’s clear that something strange is afoot in Munson, the fictional Florida hamlet where Frances Johnson takes place. A volcano seethes on the outskirts of town, strange animals skitter in the shadows, and a dense brown fog has settled overhead. Pets and people vanish. Unfurling over a period of days leading up to the town’s annual dance, the story follows Frances’s mounting restlessness, as she must decide whether to take control of her life or cede it to the murky future the community has designated for her. Though the novel hinges on a familiar plot point—will Frances remain in Munson, or escape to the world at large?—it’s the only trace of convention to be found in this hypnotic book, which transforms its setting into a tableau of exotic menace.”—Time Out New York

“Stacey Levine is one of the most interesting writers working in America today, startling and idiosyncratic in the best sense… Levine’s work is, at least technically, “surreal,” but like much of the best writing that maps the borders between dreams and conscious life, its subtle disjunctions create a zone that often feels more real than “reality” itself… If it feels like we’ve been here before, underneath this dance floor, gazing up at the townsfolk above, it is not because we’ve seen this landscape in other fictions, but maybe in a half-remembered dream.”—Stephen Beachy, San Francisco Bay Guardian

“Frances Johnson doesn’t want to attend the town dance. But there are pressures all around her—including those from Ray, her boyfriend, who is “overfocused on world history,” Mal, the horsey, earnest fry cook, and Frances’ mother, who speaks through the “mechanical screeching” of Munson’s phone connections. At once measured and suspenseful, Frances Johnson is a comedy of manners in the tradition of Jane Bowles.”—Matthew Stadler

FRANCES JOHNSON was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award in 2005, and Stacey Levine received the Stranger Genius Award for Literature in 2009.

Available via Powell's, major online retailers, and through bookstores. More information, including details for direct orders, at
http://www.versechorus.com/stacey-levine_frances-johnson.html
http://www.staceylevine.com

If she was not a child, then surely she was a type of girl. But she was not a girl, nor was she a married woman, by any means, She had no offspring, and often browsed through boating magazines; with her mouth- and eye-wrinkles she seemed almost an older woman; but she was not. Her belly burned atavistically at times, and she could be aroused upon hearing anyone at all cough or speak her name. What was a girl? Frances never had quite considered herself a full woman; besides, older women were clearly prone to ugliness and illness. She was not that way--not yet. Was she unique?

She stepped toward Kenny, who held a broken cracker in one hand.

"Kenny, when I was four years old my mother told me, 'You're all alone in the world.' And what do you know: that turned out to be true!"

He stared, then drank down a very small glass of water.

--from Frances Johnson