Download or read book Phone Calls from the Dead written by Wendy Brenner and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her second collection, Brenner, whose Large Animals in Everyday Life won the Flannery O'Connor Award, showcases her ability to conjure up bizarre situations and circumstances in the lives of ordinary people. A scientist learns to enjoy human relationships while compiling an encyclopedia of anomalies, while a high school student grosses out friends with her uncle's nipple, which she claims to have in an envelope. A father who mourns his son believes it's possible to communicate with him via tape recorder; four squirrels, tied together for a long time, are separated by a vet so they can live separately; and a very perceptive boy has a relationship with an unborn friend. Brenner is a gifted chronicler of these often poor and downtrodden characters, whose lives are marked by the oddity of the everyday world around them.