This novel includes stunning descriptions of place; it is interestingly grounded in the historical billeting of Italian soldiers in the Australian outback during the Second World War. Its characters are both quirky and well-grounded, and their many eccentricities make the novel both distinctive and compelling.
"An impressive vitality, droll wit, and affecting nostalgia lift Fenton's first novel about four high school pals growing up together during the 1970s in the fictional town of Minnisapa, Minn. . . . Eminently readable prose . . ."—Publisher's Weekly
"Delightful strangeness abounds in this novel, whether it is Mr. Toad’s collection of Victorian corsetry, the foul-mouthed cockatoo that lives on the veranda, or the bright magenta uniforms the Italian POWs are supposed to wear. The characters, too, are not just strange on the surface, but are richly odd, profoundly other."
Toads' Museum of Freaks and Wonders, a novel by Goldie Goldbloom, will debut at Chicago's independent bookstore Women & Children First, Sunday, March 14th, at 4:30 p.m.
Kevin Fenton of Saint Paul, Minnesota, has won the 2009 AWP Award for the Novel for his manuscript titled Merit Badges. Jim Shepard, author of Like You'd Understand, Anyway, judged the contest for AWP. AWP is a national, nonprofit organization dedicated to serving American letters, writers, and programs of writing. Visit the 2009 AWP Award Series page for more information on the contest and to view the winners of the other categories.
If you're like us, you're probably already making plans for AWP, scheduling out every minute. But in all the rushing about at AWP, make sure to come visit the New Issues tables (451 & 452) at the AWP Bookfair in the Hilton Chicago, Northwest Hall, Lower Level. We'll have a special conference discount on all our titles, plus the steal-of-the-day on scratch and dent copies. See you there!
"For three summers, Natalie Branch was our pool lifeguard. She wore an old broad-brimmed white hat, the kind a fifties movie star might wear, while perched on her platform overlooking the pool. We coveted Natalie’s smooth pale skin, her wide hips and large breasts, so unlike the tan boyish bodies of the other girls who worked the pool.We watched with a kind of awe across the water as she gazed down between her knees at a knot of rulebreaking teenagers, some of them our own sons and daughters, their faces repentant. Later, she’d wave them over and they’d talk excitedly with her, forgetting themselves, their limbs intertwining lazily with the legs of her platform. We understood. Sometimes we pretended Natalie was our girl. So what did Natalie have to say? we’d quiz our children on the walk home, our secret hearts clenching. Vacationing in Colorado or on South Padre Island, we’d suggest sending Natalie a postcard and our children would give us sheepish looks and go silent, as if they suspected. And sometimes we’d see Natalie standing in line just outside the pool at Jim-Jim’s Fruit Ice stand, talking to college boys about a local band or a foreign film showing at the University (Almodóvar, a name we rolled in our mouths like a lozenge). She’d let the college boys buy her mango ices and then dismiss them, all the same, with her wide, canted hips, promising only that she’d be at the pool again tomorrow, the white hat askew on her head, fingers winding and unwinding her tethered whistle." - from chapter one
Goldie Goldbloom of Chicago, Illinois, has won the 2008 AWP Award for the Novel for her manuscript titled Invaded. Joanna Scott, author of Everybody Loves Somebody and The Manikin, judged the contest for AWP. AWP is a national, nonprofit organization dedicated to serving American letters, writers, and programs of writing. Visit the 2008 AWP Award Series page for more information on the contest and to view the winners of the other categories. 
Geoff Rips, winner of the 2006 AWP Award for the Novel, will be reading from his novel, The Truth, on April 30 in San Antonio.