BULLET-PROOF GIRL

Powered by a rich mix of women's voices, the twelve stories in BULLET-PROOF GIRL show the many ways in which women are both tough and vulnerable, funny and bitter. While the characters vary in age and circumstance, each strives for something different in her life.

"Dinner at Josette's," a short, biting story about a woman whose friend is in love with a gay man, deals with the nature of friendship between women, its competitive and nurturing elements. In "How to Clean your Apartment," the narrator humorously compares getting over a man with getting rid of old and unusable stuff. The fifty-five-year-old black woman in "Lennie Remembers the Angels," confronts memories of a lifetime of disappointment following a childhood visitation from angels as she recovers from a car accident. "Midnight Bowling," a seventeen-year-old narrator decides to leave behind her fanatically religious mother, her sweet but unambitious boyfriend and her memories of bowling with her late father as she grabs at the chance to attend college.