The Novel in Double Vision: A Story Told in Two Voices February 7, 2011

Mary Troy, director of UMSL's Creative Writing MFA Program, editor of Natural Bridge, and associate professor of English, reads from her first novel, Beauties. Set in South St. Louis at the turn of the millennium, Beauties is told in alternating points of view by two cousins who operate a Meramec Street cafe. They are in their mid-thirties; one gorgeous, twice divorced, and looking for praise through success; the other one-legged and unattractive, a failed high school English teacher, cynical and needy, who forms a deep connection to a foster child harmed by neglect. Beauties won the USA Book award for best book of literary fiction. Troy, author of three short story collections, also has won a Nelson Algren Award and the Devil's Kitchen Reading Award.