Limited Edition Hardcover - TIGER PAW, TIGER PAW, KNIFE, KNIFE by Kelly Gray
"A small opening into the underworld. The underside of flowers and trees, a thin white webbing linking each plant being. It smells of rot and fresh animal fat, wet fur and shared breath."
In Tiger Paw, Tiger Paw, Knife, Knife, Kelly Gray has given us a shuddering incantation against domestication. Humans and animals morph into kin, plum trees and lemon trees mark yards where acts of wrongdoing transform bodies in and out of themselves, dead wolves give lectures to perverts, a uterus bleeds bees. Each haunting story centers body and place, pivoting between short prose and poetry that defies genre, leading the reader on a visceral journey of emotion. Gray’s wielding of imagery is electric, flora and fauna drip from every page but always at the center a human heart. These stories do not offer up neat endings or lead the reader to the other side of transformation, but rather explore the impetus for change, the grit of transmutation in the face of individual and systemic abuse. Tenderness and brutality swirl together as characters undergo births and rebirths, deaths and redeaths. Ultimately, Tiger Paw, Tiger Paw, Knife, Knife asks: Will you speak of your wounds and carry your knife? Gray answers:
“I undress facing the audience. Watch me howl.”
This Limited Edition will be printed with a full color cover, including a transparent dust jacket, with offset printing, black and white interior on cream-colored matte pages, custom end sheets, and 8+ illustrations by Holly "Oddly" L'Oiseau! (Not including many other decorative items and embellishments throughout)!
Only 250 copies will be made, each hand numbered.
The book is 6x9" and will have, roughly, 112 pages.
About the Author:
Kelly Gray (she/her/hers) is a writer and educator in Northern California on occupied Coast Miwok and Kashaya Pomo land. Gray writes about parenting, eco-grief, mental health, dead things, monsters, prophetic animals, relationships to self and others, and rural life. She is the recipient of the 2022 Neutrino Short-Short Prize from Passages North and the Creative Sonoma's ArtSurround Cohort Grant. Most recently Gray's writing appears or is forthcoming in Northwest Review, Passages North, Menacing Hedge, Newfound, Pithead Chapel, Hobart, and Under a Warm Green Linden, Driftwood Press. You can read more of her writing and purchase her books at writekgray.com.
About the Artist:
Holly "Oddly" L'Oiseau is an illustrator of peculiar paper and weird wares living in rural South Georgia. If you are an underdog, cynic, or that person who can't ever seem to get it right the first...or even second time around, this is the place for you. Here, you'll find paper, home goods, and accessories that help you get all of those mixed up feelings off your chest.
INTERNATIONAL PEEPS: As always, if you are interested in purchasing this book, please contact me via email or Instagram to create a custom listing that covers the shipping costs.
