Line Jester and Other Stories

Line Jester and Other Stories by Michael Duncan

The stories in Michael Duncan's debut chapbook collection take the reader through surreal landscapes, where art is both necessary and impossible.

In the title story, a performer meets a colleague who shows him how to take his performance to supernatural heights. "On the Death of the Baroness of Silence" presents a musician who considers an offer of financial security in exchange for hanging up his instrument. "Namelessness" and "On the Occasion of the Downed Wire" examine questions of meaning and identity in circumstances that provide neither.

Throughout his stories, the force of Duncan's ideas is matched with an exacting attention to language and detail. The fables in Line Jester and Other Stories offer a bracing reminder of the power of beauty, and a singular, expressionist aesthetic.

Fiction, 33 pp. Click here to download PDF in new window.

Michael Duncan was born in Michigan and attended Indiana University where he received degrees in Mathematics, Economics, and Psychology. He currently works for W.W. Norton and lives in Harlem.

Also by Michael Duncan: "Suggested List for Further Reading," parts 1 and 2