Breaking the Curse

“Alex DiFrancesco’s eclectic, absorbing first collection, Transmutation, captures moments of in-betweenness (often fraught, sometimes magical) that may be especially familiar to transgender people who are not legible, temporarily or purposefully, to others or themselves... Within these direct, straightforward stories are corridors of solitude and reflection... Unlike with the cool remove of, say, Rachel Cusk’s fiction, DiFrancesco clearly is not afraid to err on the side of sentimentality... At the affective core of “Transmutation” is the question of how we can offer shelter for one another’s pain, real and imagined.” —Patrick Cottrell, The New York Times Book Review

“On the one hand, transmutation means transformation; on the other, it may suggest change of a specific sort—produced by alchemy or even radioactive decay. The stories in DiFrancesco’s book flirt with both, moving between realistic situations and gothic plots to show us characters in the midst of becoming their real selves, changing into something new, or even being altered.” —Kirkus

“Whether injecting lake water into their leg to conjure a swamp thing, using a reusable metal straw to suck up the air around an irrelevant professor, or dealing with the health concerns specific to vampires, the characters in Transmutation are tender and real. The presence of fantastical elements is part of the magic of these 10 stories, which are linked thematically by the changeable nature of the body. DiFranceso’s alchemy is that every story reveals someone who is realizing a new version of themselves.” —Wendy J. Fox, Buzzfeed

"Transmutation is an eerie darling of a collection. Alex DiFrancesco has written stories here that are so unearthly they feel as if they have gossamer wings, characters lifting off the page to hold court in startling three-dimensional life. Some playful, some terrifying, all crafted with care—Transmutation is the kind of story collection that will stick with you for days after reading. DiFrancesco is a radiant talent." —Kristen Arnett, New York Times bestselling author of With Teeth and Mostly Dead Things

"Transmutation is an innovative, magical collection about all the things that pulse with possibility: love in all forms, belonging, reckoning, and reclamation. Each sentence is a gem, multi-faceted and full of light. Alex DiFrancesco has the kind of imagination that saves lives." —K-Ming Chang, author of Bestiary

"Multilayered, poetic, insightful stories that won't let you put them down. Transmutation is simultaneously an absolute pleasure and heartache of a read. I thought about the stories in this book for weeks after I finished them, reliving the small details, searching for new meaning, which I always found." —Chavisa Woods, author of Things To Do When You're Goth in the Country and 100 Times (A Memoir of Sexism)