Proper Imposters

Distributed by University Press of Florida on behalf of

Panhandler Books, an imprint of the Department of English and World

Languages at the University of West Florida



In Proper Imposters,

four contemporary authors explore the vices and virtues of deception

and how it manifests in ways personal, psychological, propulsive, and

profound. An accountant at a pencil manufacturing company investigates a

series of ominous events behind the facade of the mysterious company

where he works; from their deathbeds, fictionalized versions of Nikolai

Gogol and Edgar Allen Poe look back on their lives and remember an epic,

transformational, and ahistorical road trip they took together as young

men; a young woman is startled into action trying to execute "a simple

plan" of escape involving cash, a sleep-over by her college roommate and

the bold seduction of a boy she has decided to lose her virginity to;

and, a reclusive night-shift worker tries a daring weight-loss

experiment only to find himself pursued by a stalker no one else can

see. Montiel Figueiras, Parker, Bhuvaneswar, and Ockert are devotees and

virtuosos of the form, and each novella is lyrically rich in its prose

and swift in its plotting. Together, the novellas startle with the

consequences of seeing and being seen.