Good Afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Dexter Palmer, author of Mary Toft or The Rabbit Queen. Published in November by Pantheon. Dexter is also the author of Version Control and The Dream Of Perpetual Motion, two really cool books. Science fiction, fantasy and magical realism.

He wrote his dissertation on James Joyce, William Gaddis and Thomas Pynchon, which is enough work for an entire life. And he also held the first academic conference on video games.

And whether you like it or not he also writes test questions for the SAT.

Mary Toft is kind of a departure for Dexter in that it deals with a “true story”. True in certain ways.

A woman gives birth to a lot of rabbits. Dead rabbits. You can read all about her in Wikipedia.

She does so, birthday dead rabbits that is, over and over and over.

John Howard, a very good man and country doctor and his apprentice Zachary are deceived at first, then things become clearer.

Why would anyone believe this scam? Well, we’ll find out.