An Agent of Utopia

Summary

Come meet a Utopian assassin, an aging UFO contactee, a haunted Mohawk steelworker, a time-traveling prizefighter, a yameating Zombie, and a child who loves a frizzled chicken—not tomention Harry Houdini, Zora Neale Hurston, and all their fellow travelers riding the steamer-trunk imagination of a unique twentyfirst-century fabulist. From the Florida folktales that inspired “Daddy Mention and the Monday Skull” (first published in Mojo: Conjure Stories, edited by Nalo Hopkinson) to the imagined story of boxer and historical bitplayer Jess Willard in World Fantasy Award winner “The Pottawatomie Giant” to Flannery O’Connor’s childhood celebrity in “Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse,” Duncan juxtaposes historical figures with marvels and confabulations. This new and selected volume of Duncan’s best features two new stories, “Joe Diabo’s Farewell”—in which a gang of Native American ironworkers in 1920s New York City go to a show—and the title storywhere he reveals what really (might have) happened to Thomas More’s head.