“We may have to invent a new term--'the political lyric,' perhaps--to describe the 'airy speech and inspired story' in Marilyn Krysl's brilliant new collection of short fiction, Dinner with Osama. Here are stories that range from the whimsical 'Air, A Romance,' in which Krysl uses white space and typographical layout in a manner more typical of poetry than fiction, to the disturbing novella 'Welcome to the Torture Center, Love,' where the horrors of the Sudan are the heart of a love story. What holds all the fiction together, as much as the impassioned political and cultural concerns that inform them, is the writing, which is lyrical in the best sense, lyrical as in musical, expressive, and vivid.”

—Ed Falco, author of Sabbath Night in the Church of the Piranha: New and Selected Stories


“Marilyn Krysl is one of our most gifted, quirky, and delightful storytellers-unpredictable, funny, and wildly inventive in wondrous ways. Her new collection shows her at the top of her form as she details the ordinary, the absurd, and the apocalyptic in outrageous and deeply affecting ways.”

—Jay Neugeboren, author of 1940, Imagining Robert, and News from the New American Diaspora


“Marilyn Krysl's astonishing Dinner with Osama somehow finds the intersection between deep anguish at the state of the world and brilliant, caustic, and hilarious sociopolitical satire of America post-9/11. Its effrontery is peculiarly female, its fierce intelligence that of a mother-or even ('Are We Dwelling Deep Yet?') a Great Mother-who needs to save and feed the world however she can. Its north and south must be 'Mitosis,' Krysl's heartbreaking life history of a young Dinka woman whose way of life, and source of food, have been destroyed by civil war in Sudan; its east and west is surely the title story, in the voice of a politically irreproachable matriarch of Boulder, Colorado, who does her part by extending a dinner invitation to Osama-yes, that Osama-through her "pal" Abdullah at the local gyros stand; and Osama not only receives it, he accepts. Israelis and Palestinians, 'conflict'-addicted cliché-mongers of the creative writing workshop, violent extremists of every stripe, and above all the wealthy consumerist left are all skewered in this miraculous collection. I'll wager that even you, gentile reader, will find your face (and your bad conscience) somewhere in its fractured, pitiless mirror.”

—Jaimy Gordon, author of Bogeywoman and She Drove Without Stopping


University of Notre Dame Press Review

American Book Review article by Alicia Ostriker (PDF format)

I’m on the Boulder mall half an hour before my herbal wrap appointment, shopping for an eye-liner not tested on rabbits, when I get the idea:  why not ask Bin Laden over for a glass of Chardonnay and something light but upscale. Me, Sheila, your average liberal neocolonial with a whiff of Cherokee thrown in way back when. I’ve been known to cook up a delicate Pesto Primavera or some boisterous Buffalo Enchiladas, take your pick. Better yet, something showy to appeal to his self image as a major player--my Alaskan salmon a la Tetsuya marinated in fresh basil, coriander, thyme and grape seed oil.

Shoppers bustle past with gleaming, logoed bags. Though Osama’s hosts, the Taliban, are anti-woman, I’m no threat. Think a latter day Julia Child stuffing a Thanksgiving turkey. I’ve got a PhD in minding the human 7-11, serving all comers and keeping and eye on the clumsy bruiser who’s about to knock the bottle of olive oil off the shelf. I’m an expert at chatting people up, and this is Boulder where we aspire to getting it right. A passing tee reads meat: that’s what’s rotting in your colon. There’s an ordinance against marketing fur within the county, and our Eddie Bauer carries the de rigueur parka with the built in air pollution level monitor. Our city’s joined the suit against global warming, and some in our trusts have deeded our designer homes with upgrades back to the descendants of the original Arapahos. Shops specialize in North Korean ginseng, South Korean ginseng, Nicaraguan ginseng, and a fabulous new strain grown in Connecticut. You can order arias sung for the spleen tailored to your personal astro printout, and if the acupuncturist recommends it, get a liver massage.

The personal, my Sis says, is perfectible. Limit kids’ TV ration, then nurture away at the generous impulse. Sis and I are a year apart. I got the buxom look, she got svelte. We’re like Do/Don’t. Before/After. She and Darin’s dad couldn’t get pregnant—they’d resigned themselves to our sperm bank, Immaculate Conceptions—and then they tried Gonal-F ampules made from crushed Chinese hamster ovaries, and this worked. Sis and I were equal opportunity employers of unisex toddlers….