Play, with Knives

Edgar Cosentino can’t stand lies. A talented painter, he’s hired as the set designer for a struggling theater troupe touring the Midwest by train. Within its eccentric cast, he finds happiness in his budding relationship with actress Ava Vale, but Ava soon realizes his revulsion for lying has accidentally trapped her with a secret--she’s technically married. All the while, playwright Fallon Finn-Dorset watches this drama unfold and incorporates aspects into her plays. But strange things happen on the train--the troupe is accompanied by a partly tame fox and a barman resembling Abraham Lincoln, and random elements of Fallon’s writings magically come to life. Lies blur with truth, and fiction populates reality in ways that have dangerous consequences for Edgar, Ava, and others. Can their stories be rewritten to save the relationship as well as the future of the troupe? PLAY, WITH KNIVES is a highly inventive novel--surreal and poetic, yet full of lighthearted humor--about the morality of art, the subjectivity of truth and reality, and the magic of the written word.

Jeanette Horn holds an MFA from The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she received a Maytag Fellowship. Her poetry has appeared in MARGIE, POETRY INTERNATIONAL, STAND, and other literary journals. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and dogs. Learn more at www.jeanettehorn.com.