Gone South and Other Ways to Disappear

Short Stories

A collection of eight sharply imaginative short stories that focus on women’s relationships with their bodies, their lovers, their female friends, and their health. After an overweight cubicle worker takes a diet pill she loses sixty pounds in eight hours and her relationships with other women begins to change. A bossy stay-at-home mom’s husband leaves her for a younger woman, and while trying to make sense of her suddenly altered life, she has an otherworldly experience. A young therapist struggles to face her terminal cancer diagnosis as her body slowly gives out. While on vacation in Italy, a successful copy editor who longs to escape from her life follows a stranger home. These are just a few of the captivating characters that inhabit Julia Leggett’s witty and brilliant debut fiction.