The Pillow Museum - by Claire Bateman (Paperback)

About the Book

Claire Bateman's The Pillow Museum gathers 56 flash fictions, micro-essays, and contemporary fables that explore the absurdities and burdens of modern life--especially for women and families. With lyrical precision and a voice that defies convention, Bateman crafts a world where glass pianos light homes, comedy clubs double as funeral parlors, and every moment pulses with strange, poetic urgency.

Book Synopsis

A collection of 56 flash fictions, micro-essays, and contemporary fables about the burden on women and families.

The Pillow Museum is a collection of 56 flash fictions, micro-essays, and contemporary fables set in various simulacra of our world. Claire Bateman's gorgeous prose captures the imagination with closely observed details of people and places that are startlingly familiar yet unreal, where nothing can be taken for granted, including narrative logic: "It was snowing the night they had the fight about the glass piano whose music provided all the light in the house."

In an authoritative voice that offers no apologies or justifications, The Pillow Museum evokes a closely observed slipstream strangeness that refuses to take any moment or detail for granted--a fruitful, delirious disruption.

Review Quotes

"If you've read Claire Bateman's work before, put away any preconceived notions. The Pillow Museum is a remarkable book, one that unfolds like a map of a town where all the signposts have been switched, where the comedy club doubles as a funeral home, and the devices you depend on might tell you 'How enviable your life would be if you'd just handled everything differently.' It's the kind of tour you won't expect, but you'll be glad to have taken, as I was, and continue to be." --John Gallaher, author of My Life in Brutalist Architecture

"[Bateman's] work and career are about making the most of every moment. I've been told that the difference between poetry and flash fiction is the passage of time within a piece. Bateman weaves her best magic like clockwork: every gear's teeth chew each other in perfect time." --Write or Die Magazine

"Claire Bateman is an artisan of the marvelous. With fanciful precision, she fashions stories singular and strange, each a fine-tuned enchantment. Lose yourself in The Pillow Museum. The world to which you return will hold new dangers, and new delights." --Joanna Ruocco, author of Dan

About the Author

Claire Bateman is the author of ten collections of poetry, prose poems, and flash fiction, most recently Scape and Wonders of the Invisible World. She has received two Pushcart awards and a NEA grant. She is the poetry editor of Hubris.