Butter

“Butter”: A novella

“Sophia”: A novella

“Screen Test”: A fragment

“A Spy Story”

“Garlic Bread”: A novella

“The Costume Maker”

“Worker”: A fragment

“Mirabeau”

“Jigsaw Sandals”

“Shuger’s Wife”

“The Female Angel”

“Horse Race”: A fragment

“Bathtub Gin”: A fragment

“The Historian, the Actress, and the Playwright”

“Ravenna”

“The Horse-Believing Woman”

“The Lost Stories”: Fragments
Jazz People
Abstract Fiction
Cultural Pluralism
Sweet Marsala
Rainbow People
The Elephant, or Totem and Taboo
The Gingerbread Man: An Experiment
Wooley Boatman
Stephan and Pilar
Mrs. Marsipan
Aunt Jane’s Dream

Gayl Jones was born in Kentucky in 1949. She attended Connecticut College and Brown University, and has taught at Wellesley College and the University of Michigan. Her landmark books include Corregidora, Eva’s Man, The Healing (a National Book Award finalist and New York Times Notable Book of the Year), Palmares (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction), and most recently, The Birdcatcher (National Book Award finalist).

This collection of new and revised novellas, fragments, and short stories is as varied and diverse as the settings and the characters who inhabit them. As in her previous works, National Book Award finalist Jones explores expansive themes through the perspectives of richly drawn, fascinating characters who are often out of place and time. . . . There is a dreamlike quality as we enter the minds of these characters that is inviting and effective. Even in the briefest of fragments. . . . the reader is left feeling full and satisfied.
Booklist, Starred Review

A collection of glorious stories and rough fragments. . . . [T]hese stories sing. This is a gift for Jones s fans.
Publishers Weekly

Every Jones publication is a major event, but this one is particularly precious. This wide ranging collection of short fiction is only the second by one of our most lauded literary authors.
Oprah Daily

Butter tells singing stories of characters navigating multiracial, multicultural societies.
TIME

At this point, I will read anything Gayl Jones has written, and you should too. This is a collection of novellas and stories, some never-before-published and others substantially revised.
Karla Strand, Ms.

Jones s writing powerfully blends narrative and lyricism . . . Her imagination seems to thrive on outstripping one s expectations.
Margo Jefferson