Misfits and Other Heroes

“A collection of winningly perverse pleasures. Misfits and Other Heroes is the literary equivalent of Todd Browning’s classic film Freaks, which is—in this achingly dull age of worthy fictions—a wonderful and daring thing to be.” —Pinckney Benedict

“This is no ordinary collection. In Misfits and Other Heroes Burns writes of disproportion, excess, reinvention, and lack as a means of magnifying outward physical irregularities to better reveal the inner irregularities of her characters. Burns is unafraid to explore the dark territory of human heart where love and hate are twins for desire and dread. The many brilliant moments of character, language, and startling observations indicate Burns is a keen observer of the wretched and wonderful human creature. In Burns’ capable hands the grotesque becomes achingly familiar: the misfits she writes about are us.” —Gina Oschner

"Suzanne Burns is the ringleader of a magical, quixotic, flea circus of words. Magisterial, she sings. I love this collection-its sadness and wonder, its acrobatics, its nerve." —Kate Bernheimer, editor of Fairy Tale Review

“Who would have thought that Oregon's misfits could be as deluded and cruel as Flannery O'Connor's Southerners and even more bizarre?" —Tom Whalen, author of Dolls: Prose Poems

Suzanne Burns' Misfits and Other Heroes is a wickedly insightful, brilliantly constructed collection of 14 stories which are at once fearless and full of hope. In tales of the familiar turned on their heads, Burns introduces us to lovers and travelers, dreamers and daredevils, a man the size of a drinking straw and a magician with a masochistic streak. Acts of murder and mayhem run alongside a middle-aged woman dreaming of a different life. In each tale Burns consistently hits the perfect chord. The stories do not just present the strange but uses the bizarre to accent what is human in all of us.

Mixing the best of Palahniuk with the keen clever humor of Aimee Bender, Burns is a writer of unique wit and wisdom. Misfits and Other Heroes is a debut not to be missed.

Suzanne Burns has previously published two collections of poetry, Blight from Archer Books and The Flesh Procession from Bleak House Books. Her writing has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and she is the recipient of two poetry fellowships. She is a freelance editor who is currently working on a new novel.