 A "magic pitcher," from The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices, adapted by Theophilus Boykin for use at the Baghdad Bazaar in Threestep, Georgia, 1939 |
My WorksThe Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia
W. W. Norton & Company Coming in Fall 2010 Narrator Gladys Cailiff is eleven years old in 1938 when a new schoolteacher turns Threestep, Georgia, upside down. A well-traveled young woman, Miss Grace Spivey believes in field trips, Arabian costumes, and reading aloud from her ten-volume set of One Thousand Nights and a Night. The real trouble begins when she decides to revive the annual town festival as an exotic Baghdad Bazaar. On the recommendation of Gladys’s brother Force, who is as irresistibly handsome as any Arabian prince, Miss Spivey enlists the Cailiffs’ African American neighbor, young Theo Boykin, to be the “chief engineer” and creative genius behind the Baghdad Bazaar. Miss Spivey and her project transform the lives of everyone around her: Gladys’s older brother Force (beloved by all for his big heart and his movie-star looks), her pregnant sister May (a gifted storyteller herself), and especially Theo Boykin, whose creative genius becomes the key to a colorful, hidden history of the South. From the fate of a camel driver on the Arabian Peninsula to that of a circus in the wake of Sherman’s army, from the role of an enchanted pitcher in a ninth-century war between brothers to its recreation in a segregated classroom in the 1930s, The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia rides a magic carpet from the coastal islands of Georgia to the banks of the Tigris (and back again) in an entrancing feat of storytelling. The Turk and My Mother
W.W. Norton & Company Winner of the 2005 John Gardner Book Award Four generations come to vivid life in pages spanning the entire 20th century, from the outer reaches of Siberia to the heartland of America. The sheer, indulgent pleasure of storytelling gives shape to this multi-layered comic novel about an immigrant family's secret history. "With wonderful insights into the immigrant experience--and with a sense of humor that encourages the reader to laugh out loud--Mary Helen Stefaniak tells an unforgettable story." --Eleanor Edmondson, president, Bas Bleu "Stefaniak's easy familiarity with the vernacular idioms of the old country and the new, and her respectful, zestful ear for different voices, create a world . . . at once magical and grounded in reality."--Publishers Weekly "Fans of Amy Tan and Carol Shields will revel in the themes of remembrance, forgiveness, family devotion and forbidden love."--Booklist "The Turk and My Mother is a wild ride through a symphonic family history that carries you breathless with laughter and curiosity to a most satisfying conclusion." --Sandra Scofield, author of Occasions of Sin: A Memoir ". . . a journey across continents and history that is hilarious, heart-breaking, and deeply touching."--Jonis Agee, author of Acts of Love on Indigo Road "The Turk and My Mother sparkles with originality, humor and insight. Mary Helen Stefaniak has a true gift for making the ordinary feel magical and the exotic feel hauntingly familiar. I love this novel!" --Eilzabeth Stuckey-French, author of Mermaids on the Moon "The Turk and My Mother reinvents the family saga and the art of storytelling as we know it." --Lan Samantha Chang, author of Inheritance Self Storage and Other Stories
New Rivers Press Winner of the Wisconsin Library Association’s 1998 Banta Award “Stefaniak puts her characters to the test and watches them exceed themselves.” --David Hamilton, author of Deep River “These are transformative tales. . . . The world around us is the same but we are changed, our awareness heightened, our empathy renewed.” --Sharon Oard Warner, author of Deep in the Heart A Different Plain
(University of Nebraska Press, 2004), edited by Ladette Randolph, includes the story, "Believing Marina," by Mary Helen Stefaniak. The authors of A Different Plain explore the Midwest, a vastness of small towns, corn, cattle, football, and family businesses. They also venture far afield, to desolate western lives, crowded urban relationships, poignant couplings, comic families, cross-country bus rides, and the worldly idiosyncrasies of characters everywhere. Original, spirited, and surprising, these contemporary stories depict a modern world on the move and extend the tradition of great fiction from Nebraska into the twenty-first century. In the Middle of the Middle West: Literary Nonfiction from the Heartland
(Indiana University Press, 2003), edited by Becky Bradway, includes the essay, “Positively 4th Street,” by Mary Helen Stefaniak. Stefaniak’s "Positively 4th Street" recalls people and events of her Milwaukee south-side neighborhood. It's one of 42 essays that take their inspiration from the Midwest -- not just its physical terrain but its emotional terrain as well. The writers are poets, novelists, filmmakers, and journalists; some came and stayed, some came and left. Others, like Stefaniak, were born and raised in the Midwest. |
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