Slavin, Julia

PERSONAL: Married; husband a securities attorney; children: two.

ADDRESSES: Home—Washington, DC. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Henry Holt, 115 West 18th St., New York, NY 10011.

CAREER: Writer. Former producer for American Broadcasting Companies Inc. (ABC) television program Prime Time Live.

WRITINGS:

The Woman Who Cut off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club (short stories), Henry Holt (New York, NY), 1999.

Carnivore Diet (novel), W. W. Norton (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals, including Gentlemen's Quarterly.

SIDELIGHTS: Julia Slavin's short-story collection The Woman Who Cut off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club features a wide range of odd subjects and bizarre occurrences. For example, "Dentaphilia" concerns a woman who grows teeth all over her body. Her dentist, overcome with love for her, adorns her with gold caps everywhere. In another story, a young couple's attempt to make their home safe for their baby leads to the husband's banishment from the family quarters and the eventual construction of a foam-rubber living area. One of Slavin's protagonists has an affair with a tree; another cuts off her leg to ease the itching caused by mosquito bites. With unusual imagery, the author satirizes modern life in each of her tales. As Charles Taylor explained in a New York Times Book Review article, "The grotesque is the house in which Julia Slavin dwells, and even at their most outlandish these stories never feel forced. Slavin's subject is the fears and anxieties and reckless, self-destructive impulses that underlie the commitments we make to marriage and family and homeowning." A reviewer for the Economist concurred that Slavin's unusual stories have a natural feel: "Aberrations occur cheerfully within the context of the commonplace. Ms. Slavin is like that rare ranconteur who can relate her dreams without trying anyone's patience."

The twelve unpredictable, surrealistic stories comprising The Woman Who Cut off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club demonstrate how the author's "imagination and sense of humor combine like a funhouse mirror," remarked a Publishers Weekly writer. "Reality is still visible, but utterly changed." Barbara Fisher, a reviewer for the Boston Globe, approved of the way "the best of these stories progress from surface banallity to deep and often dark feeling with ease and elegance." The Woman Who Cut off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club prompted Juliet Whittman to herald Slavin as "a major discovery" whose "writing gets into your bloodstream like a fever." Whittman found that while Slavin's outrageous plots are remarkable in themselves, the stories "go far beyond these surprising propositions. Once you've grapsed the central concept, you think you have some idea where you might be heading…. But Slavin is far too original for that; you just have to follow, wondering, wherever she leads."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 1999, Bonnie Johnson, review of The Woman Who Cut off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club, p. 1794.

Boston Globe, August 29, 1999, Barbara Fisher, review of The Woman Who Cut off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club, p. C2.

Economist, February 19, 2000, review of The Woman Who Cut off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club, p. 14.

Entertainment Weekly, July 30, 1999, Margot Mifflin, review of The Woman Who Cut off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club, p. 66.

Library Journal, April 15, 1999, Eleanor J. Bader, review of The Woman Who Cut off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club, p. 147; May 15, 2000, Dan Bogey, review of The Woman Who Cut off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club, p. 152.

New York Times Book Review, August 15, 1999, Charles Taylor, review of The Woman Who Cut off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club, p. 8.

Publishers Weekly, May 17, 1999, review of The Woman Who Cut off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club, p. 53.

Washington Post, September 9, 1999, Juliet Whittman, review of The Woman Who Cut off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club, p. C2; September 15, 1999, Nichole Lewis, "Julia Slavin's Stories Chart Some Very Unfamiliar Territory," p. C1.