Amy Fusselman's first two books, The Pharmacist's Mate and 8 , weave surprising beauty out of diverse strands of personal reflection. Half memoir and half philosophical improvisation, each focuses loosely on a relationship with a man in the author's life: The Pharmacist's Mate with her recently deceased father, and 8 with "my pedophile" (as Fusselman painfully refers to her childhood assailant). Along the way, Fusselman covers sea shanties and artificial insemination, World War II and AC/DC, alternative healers and monster-truck videos. Fusselman's "wholly original epigrammatic style" ( Vogue ) "makes the world strange again, a place where dying and making life are equally mysterious and miraculous activities" ( Time Out New York ).