Black Jesus and Other Superheroes

2018 PEN America Literary Award Winner-Los Angeles Winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction,Black Jesus and Other Superheroes chroniclesordinary people achieving vivid extrasensory perception whileunder extreme pain.The stories tumble into a universe of the jaded and the hopeful, in which men and womenburdened withunwieldy andundesirable superhuman abilities are nonethelessresilient in subtle and startling ways. Venita Blackburn's charactershurl themselves toward the inevitable fates they might rather wish away. Theirstories play with magic without the sparkle, glaring at the internal machinations of the human spirit. Fragile symbols for things such asrace, sexuality, and love are lifted, decorated, and exposed to scrutiny and awe like so many ruins of our imagination. Through it all Blackburn's characters stumblealong currents of language both thoughtful and hilarious.