Jackalope

Fiction. Native American Studies. Jackalope in Denise Low's trickster stories is a 21st century figure as real as Bigfoot. Part antelope and part rabbit, this denizen of the grasslands has a Twitter account and a trusty road car. He loves Native American tales as well as Old West adventures. Jack's social life includes encounters with Roswell aliens, Jayhawks, and Chupacabra (Goat Sucker). Bawdy humor is Jackalope's lifeblood, so join Jack as he (or sometimes she) savors urban legends and juniper- based martinis.

In JACKALOPE, the mythic gender- bending figure, Jaq/Jack, takes us along on a magical mystery tour where s/he meets up with other trickster- cryptids. Jaq/Jack leaps out of the two-dimensional entrapment of postcards to claim his/her own spaces between worlds. One wonders why Jackalope has had to wait so long to have a say.--Jeanetta Calhoun Mish, Director of The Red Earth MFA

JACKALOPE recounts the seriocomic encounters of a Native American trickster who travels through a world that's 'part factual and part mythological, just like everything else.' In the 'intergender' Jackalope/Jaqalope Kelley's picaresque sojourns in bars (mostly), truck stops, and galleries, history meets tall tale, dream and vision worry the mundane, and humor functions as a salve for wounds of the long-oppressed. Here is a multi- faceted and incisive look at America from the viewpoint of its indigenous people and spirits.--William Trowbridge, Missouri Poet Laureate

JACKALOPE is a perfect blend of stories, poetry, and strangeness. Denise Low has created a collection that is simultaneously myth and not-myth, a shining delight.--Kij Johnson, Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards winner

Trickster takes center stage in Denise Low's JACKALOPE, a collection of prose and poetry recounting the adventures of its title character, Jackalope Kelley. This anthropomorphic animal is the cryptid on postcards you see at gas stations across the American Midwest--a rabbit with two iconic pronghorn antlers. Jackalope Kelley shifts between male and female identities: Jack when he's a man, Jaq when she's a woman. He drinks a gin and tonic in a Twitter bar. She passes through Seattle, Santa Fe, Minneapolis, Colorado, and Roswell, among other places. He vomits when he sees the head of one of his ancestors mounted above the door in a Wyoming bar. And she searches for a gynecologist--or does he need a urologist? All of these scenes give the book a playful feel, but there's also plenty of time for reflection. In quieter moments, Jackalope tries to explain his complicated heritage to others. ... This merging of shape-shifting identities with shape-shifting trickster narratives is no accident. The language of the book is steeped in the Native American mythologies and vocabularies that Low understands so well.--Ben Pfeiffer, Interviews Editor, The Rumpus