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.