Noy Holland’s new collection of short fiction, Swim for the Little One First, came out in September. I would like to encourage you to buy it and read it. I read the first page, and, despite my enormous stack of books-in-progress, I felt compelled to read the rest, immediately. Maybe you will, too:

Rose called.

I said, “Hello, Rose.”

“You sound funny.”

I was lying on my back with my legs in the air trying to make a baby with my mister. I had his seed in there. My poor egg had slipped out to meet it.

“Can’t you come out here and help me?” Rose pleaded. She had bunions. She had busted her elbow stirring oatmeal.

I was busy. My mucous was of a quality. I had just the least clutch of eggs left out of the millions I got when I started.

“Get off,” my man said, “and I’ll do it again.”

“Is that Tonto I hear?”

Tonto snorted. “She’ll talk all day if you let her.”

But maybe you need more convincing. Here’s Holland reading the title story, “Swim for the Little One First,” at the release party for Conjunctions 57. It may be the beginnings of a novel, though the internet seems to be all tease on the subject. Here’s a newer story, “Chupeta.” Here’s an interview with Holland that Michael Kimball did in 2006. Here’s a selection of correspondence between Holland and Stanley Crawford (author of Log of the SS the Mrs Unguentine) published in The Believer. I don’t know what else to tell you if this hasn’t convinced you to buy the book. Noy Holland is the author of What begins with bird (FC2) and The Spectacle of the Body (Knopf). “Noy,” Google search reveals, is short for “Flournoy.”