Aimee
Bender

Aimee Bender is the author of three books: The Girl in the Flammable Skirt (1998) which was a NY Times Notable Book, An Invisible Sign of My Own (2000) which was an L.A. Times pick of the year, and Willful Creatures (2005) which was nominated by The Believer as one of the best books of the year. Her short fiction has been published in Granta, GQ, Harper’s, Tin House, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review, and many more, as well as heard on PRI’s This American Life and Selected Shorts. She’s received two Pushcart prizes, and was nominated for the TipTree award in 2005. She lives in Los Angeles, and teaches creative writing at USC..

–from THE LEADING MAN
The boy was born with fingers shaped like keys. All except one, the pinkie on the right hand, had sharp ridges running along the inner length, and a point at the tip. They were made of flesh, with nerves and pores, but of a tougher texture, more hardened and specific. As a child, the boy had a difficult time learning to hold a pen and use scissors, but he was resilient and figured out his own method fast enough. His true task was to find the nine doors.

Door one he found as a kid; it was his front-door key. He did not expect this because it seemed so obvious but one day he came home from school and was locked out: his mother, usually home, had just begun taking some kind of sculpture class and was off molding clay and forgot to leave a key under the welcome mat. So he was unwelcome, in his own home. He cried for a bit and tromped on some pansies as revenge and got so frustrated staring at the lock, such a simple piece of metal separating him from his palace of food and bed and TV and telephone, that he stuck the index finger of his right hand inside. It shoved deep into the lock, bumping around, trying to find a perfect spatial match. Nothing clicked. But he’d enjoyed the sensation so he tried the middle finger next. Too big. The pinkie on the left hand: too small; it wiggled inside like a wire. It was the ring finger on his right hand that slipped inside, easy as a glove, ridges filling the humps and the boy settled it deep, rotated his entire hand, heard the click, and the door opened cleanly. Inside. He ripped his finger from the door and let out some kind of vicious delighted laugh.

When his mother came home, two hours later, hands red with clay, he pulled her straight to the door and showed her the trick. Shove in, turn, click, open. His mother kept laughing. And I didn’t even want to buy this house! She said, holding him close. And to imagine, what if we hadn’t?

“Aimee Bender scrapes up the plain gunk of our world and transforms it into the menacing, hilarious, magical stuff of myths. Her stories provide a caffeine jolt of wonder, and sport similarly addictive properties.”

— Heidi Julavits, author of The Effect of Living Backwards and The Mineral Palace

“These are stories that you’ll read with a sense of discovery and wonder. You’ll re-read them just for their beauty.”

–The Denver Post

“Intelligent and engaging… [A] fanciful and original take on the quietly helter-skelter world that lies within.”

–The New York Times

“Bender writes like an angel, with images that strike resonant chords, and her sly humor pervades every page.”

—Booklist

“Her choices are twisted, both ethereal and surprisingly weighty. . . . Terrifyingly lovely.”

–Los Angeles Times

“I am a long-standing, passionate fan of Aimee Bender’s stories. Her images explode, her words ignite. Watching her imagination catch fire remains a sustaining joy in my readerly life.”

–Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones