About this item
In mesmerizing prose, best-selling and Rome Prize-winning author Will Boast reimagines the myth of Daphne and Apollo in this much-anticipated debut novel.Elegantly written and profoundly moving, this spellbinding debut affirms Boast's reputation as a "new young American voice for the ages" (Tom Franklin) . Born with a rare (and real) condition in which she suffers degrees of paralysis when faced with intense emotion, Daphne has few close friends and even fewer lovers. Like her mythic namesake, even one touch can freeze her. But when Daphne meets shy, charming Ollie, her well-honed defenses falter, and she's faced with an impossible choice: cling to her pristine, manicured isolation or risk the recklessness of real intimacy. Set against the vivid backdrop of a San Francisco flush with money and pulsing with protest, Daphne is a gripping and tender modern fable that explores both self-determination and the perpetual fight between love and safety.Praise for Will Boast:"Remarkable." -- Phillip Lopate"[Boast] can really write." -- Ann Beattie"So essential, so alive, so immediate." -- Jesmyn Ward
About the Author
Will Boast was born in England and grew up in Ireland and Wisconsin. His story collection, Power Ballads, won the 2011 Iowa Short Fiction Award. His fiction and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in the Atlantic, the New York Times, Best New American Voices 2009, Narrative, Glimmer Train, the Southern Review, and the American Scholar, among other publications. From 2008-2010, he was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. He's currently a Charles Pick Fellow at the University of East Anglia.Boast is also a musician and plays regularly around the San Francisco Bay Area.More at willboast.com
