On Anzio Beach collects published and unpublished stories in this first book by Elizabeth Alexander, and features an original cover image and design by Cooper Renner that is based on the title story.
An interviewer in Uncanny Valley says of the title story: “’On Anzio Beach’” is made of characters and events that at first seem whimsical, but then reveal themselves as complex and somber, or even melancholy—as an example, Alet is a talking terrier, but he’s also the reincarnation of the narrator’s father’s friend, returned in this dog body for only a short time.”
Additional stories, set variously in “reality” and in the narrator’s imagination, feature intermittently recurring characters—most notably a sentient dashboard doll. They treat Jim Crow, World War II, the Algerian War, and the “war on terror” while exploring social and personal loss.
