19 Knives

With characters ranging from desperate to wildly comic, Mark Anthony Jarman's "19 Knives" employs virtuosic wordplay and staggering metaphoric powers in every sentence. But Jarman doesn't just write about people; he enables readers to enter his characters' frailty and courage. His vivid wordplay evokes with equal verve the tragedy of "Burn Man," who refers to himself in the third person in order to inhabit his disfigured body; and the cutting comedy of a delusional narrator who sees Margaret Atwood in some hilariously unlikely guises.