Novels
- Sophia, the Alchemist’s Dog (2001)
- Half Life (2006)
- Riddance (2018)
Collections
- The Melancholy of Anatomy (2002)
Picture Books
Novels Book Covers
Collections Book Covers
Picture Books Book Covers
Shelley Jackson Books Overview
Sophia, the Alchemist’s Dog
The king’s alchemist has only two weeks and then his royal master is coming to the laboratory, expecting to see that the poor man has turned lead into gold. The king loves gold. Sophia, the Alchemist’s Dog, loves her master, the man who, day and night, despondently ponders and dreams and draws and doodles panicky thoughts about gold on piles and piles of paper. He is tormenting himself for he can learn nothing, from anywhere, about the magic expected of him. And he is neglecting his friend Sophia who misses her fine walks and misses the man’s loving company. So it is that Sophia, for reasons any dog will understand, sets up a laboratory of her own under the table while her master woofs and paws the pillow nearby in his unhappy sleep. What Sophia discovers about alchemy is unforeseen, a miracle that amazes us to this very day.
Half Life
Nora and Blanche are conjoined twins. Nora is strong, funny, and deeply independent, thirsting for love and adventure. Blanche, by contrast, has been asleep for twenty years. Sick of carrying her sister’s dead weight, Nora wants her other half gone for good a desire that takes her from San Francisco to London in search of the Unity Foundation, a mysterious organization that promises to make two one. But once in England, Nora’s past begins to surface in surprising and disturbing ways, pushing her to the brink of insanity and forcing her to question her own and Blanche’s grip on the truth.
The Melancholy of Anatomy
Amusing, touching, and unsettling, The Melancholy of Anatomy is that most wonderful of fictions, one that makes us see the world in an entirely new light. Here is the body turned inside out, its members set free, its humors released upon the world. Hearts bigger than planets devour light and warp the space around them; the city of London has a menstrual flow that gushes through its underground pipes; gobs of phlegm cement friendships and sexual relationships; and a floating fetus larger than a human becomes the new town pastor. In this debut story collection, Shelley Jackson rewrites our private passages, and translates the dumb show of the body into prose as gorgeous as it is unhygienic.