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Praise for WOLF NOTE
From the first page you know you are in the hands of a masterful, wonderful and evocative author who delves deeply into her
characters and has command of nuance and style. The stories in the collection are mysterious and moving and memorable. I was
enchanted.
-- M.J. Rose - internationally bestselling author of six novels including The Halo Effect, The
Delilah Complex and The Venus Fix.
"These are riveting stories, full of mystery and shadows and strange, intriguing passions. Jacobs' lush, musical prose illuminates
the dark corners, revealing new, at times startling, truths about family, friendship
and love. A mesmerizing, assured collection."
—Cynthia Weiner, author of the 2006 Pushcart-Prize-winning story "Boyfriends."
WOLF NOTE is a little jewel, peopled with fascinating characters and deeply wrought emotions. Libby Jacobs' stories will stay
with you long after you have turned
the last page.These stories are at times mystical, sensual, and disturbing, and always beautifully written. Good writing is
such a joy, and WOLF NOTE is damned good writing. Short story writing is a difficult and demanding craft, and Libby Jacobs
clearly has mastered it. Light a fire, curl up, and get set to immerse yourself in the moods and power of WOLF NOTE.
—Michael Palmer, author of 11 New York Times Bestsellers, including THE SOCIETY, FATAL, and THE PATIENT.
About Wolf Note
The nine stories in the debut collection, WOLF NOTE, thrust the reader into diverse worlds from San Francisco in the 1940’s
to the tangled imagination of a delusional adolescent in a contemporary mental ward, introducing characters with compassion,
humor, and nuanced psychological insight.
In “Egg Money” Sandra Mae Evans, “her wedding ring gone except for a thin, untanned stripe of skin encircling
her ring finger like a half-exorcised ghost,” sits under a too hot hairdryer in a sleepy Midwest town’s only beauty
parlor and hatches a plot to gain independence from her philandering husband. A high school girl saves a friend – but
loses a friendship – when they sneak out to attend a fraternity party, which “gave Greek letters the mystique
of incantations that might transmute us from girls into women.”
In a revival meeting tent, where “the chairs were stenciled with ‘Blaughman’s Funeral Home’ on the
back and fat women all around me waved egg-shaped cardboard fans courtesy of the same sad business,” a precocious ten-year-old
learns that what passes as religion is sometimes as superficial as the shiny paint on the pearls she bought at the five-and-dime
store.
“Well, what would you say to the nurse who rushed to cover tiny cloven hoofs before she handed you your newborn son?”
is the question asked by the narrator of “Repossession.” The optimistic and indomitable protagonist acknowledges
that “There’s nothing like watching a man drip red-eye gravy down his chin, or listening to him slurp coffee and
belch into the sleeve of a shirt he’s worn for a ten-hour shift at the plant, or wiping up the catsup splatters around
his plate for a two-dime tip, to make a girl think that Prince Charming probably isn’t going to be from around here.
When Eblis made his tiny-toes, hip-swiveling, plaid-capped entrance into the café near closing time, I should have known that
trouble was coming through the door.” But having danced with the devil, she risks everything to fight for her baby.
“Red Letters, Gilt Edges (After Flannery O’Connor)” borrows a farmer’s daughter with one leg and the
bible salesman from O’Connor’s short fiction classic, and fashions a shockingly different tale of seduction and
betrayal in a hayloft.
Several stories in the collection show art as a refuge and solace. An injured ballerina turns to her grandmother’s Kodak
camera and its 35 millimeter film, which sounds to her “like artillery ammunition,” when she can no longer dance.
In the title story, the narrator ponders the concept that “certain weaknesses run in families,” and she embraces
the cello as her brother had clung his violin. “After a few weeks, sleeping in my brother’s too cold bed, I began
to hear messages whispered in the cello’s voice. I walked barefoot through the dark house to the music room and stood
in the doorway, my thighs pressed tightly together. For another moment I would deny them the delicious intimacy of the curved
wood. On a small oriental carpet sat a straight-backed chair and an empty music stand. A duet of moonlight and streetlight
poured through the open drapes and outlined the body of the cello lying on its side. It waited for me with the swelled hips
and graceful waist of an odalisque beckoning from a divan.”
The stories capture moments in women’s lives as they lose themselves – and find themselves - in love, friendship,
music and madness.
About Libby Jacobs
Libby Jacobs holds master's degrees in education from Virginia Commonwealth University and in theatre from the University
of Michigan. A theatre director and playwright, her plays have been performed in New York City (at Lincoln Center and Off
Broadway) Cleveland, Boston, and Valdez, Alaska. WOLF NOTE is her first collection of short stories. She is currently at
work on a novel.
Jacobs divides her time between Akron, Boston, and North Carolina, and she has been a particularly valuable member of the
Northeast Ohio arts community over the years. She was the managing and artistic director for Coach House Theatre in Akron
for seven years, and she's also the founder and former director of Actors' and Playwrights' Theatre in Akron, where she focused
on producing new plays.
Jacobs has been guest director at Weathervane Community Playhouse in Akron, several chamber music groups, a live WKSU (Kent
State) production of WAR OF THE WORLDS broadcast, and others. Jacobs is also a sponsor and preliminary judge of the annual
New Words Poetry contest at the Akron Art Museum.
Click here to read "Girls Climbing Trees," from the book WOLF NOTE, by Libby Jacobs
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