A M Y F U S S E L M A N .
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Homepage
www.surgeryofmodernwarfare.com
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Biography
The Pharmacist's Mate is Amy Fusselman's first book. Her writing has appeared in Pierogi Press, Emergency Gazette, and McSweeney's. From 1993–98 she published a small magazine of her writings and drawings called Bunny Rabbit. Until recently, she edited the website Surgery of Modern Warfare, which is no longer being updated. She lives in New York City with her husband and two sons.
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Books
The Pharmacist's Mate (McSweeney's, 2001)
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Press
September 2003
Zulkey
Interview
By Claire Zulkey
"If there's one thing I like about writing autobiographically, it's that I think the process demands that you give up the idea that you even have a personal life, in the sense that you have some part of yourself that is sacred or special or different or weird or shameful or whatever. In order for the writing to work, I think, you have to remember at every moment that what you're saying is old news. It's like that idea that there's nothing new under the sun. I love that."
November 2002
Texas Monthly
Interview
By Nora Varty
"One of my very favorite things to have happen, when I look at art, or hear music, or read something, is to initially say, 'What is this?!' I like the feeling of being confronted with something that has its own authority, that has nothing to do with me and what I expect. My hope is that people will have that reaction to my book."
December 2001
Hobartpulp.com
Review: The Pharmacist's Mate
By Jennifer Ulrich
"Read the book in a day. It radiates and fills you up inside. And then it is over..."
September 2001
3AM Magazine
Interview
By Andrew Gallix
"I've basically been writing forever and have been involved with a few New York literary things, including the Poetry Project at St Mark's, Ugly Duckling Press, Nights with VCR, etc. Right now I am editing a website of writing and art called Surgery of Modern Warfare, which I update once a week. It's not entirely my own work, which is a nice change, since Bunny Rabbit was exclusively my writing and drawings. I am really having fun with it, and am open to publishing pretty much anything, so please tell your readers to submit to DearSurgery@aol.com. "
August 2001
Weekly Alibi (NM)
Review: The Pharmacist's Mate
Daddy's Little Girl
By Ashley Gaulthier
"The book also contains funny stories about trying to get pregnant and going to concerts, but the value in the book is Fusselman's way of demonstrating
through those stories exactly how much her dad influenced her life and continues to influence her after his death."
June 2001
Time Out New York
Review: The Pharmacist's Mate
By David Cote
"But in this memorable, beautifully structured book, she gives us more than ironic asides or a catalog of her pop-culture interests
(although she supplies those, too); she makes the world strange again, a place where dying and making life are equally mysterious and miraculous activities..."
June 2001
The Austin Chronicle
Review: The Pharmacist's Mate
By Clay Smith
"Throughout The Pharmacist's Mate, Fusselman excerpts the diary her father kept of his first eight months at sea; what the reader initially considers a memoir about birth and death is in reality a double-fisted, alternately funny, alternately affecting wallop of a book."
May 2001
Ohio Columbus Dispatch
Interview: Author's Own Life Inspires Her Prizewinning Pharmacist's Mate
By Margaret Quamme
"My father had passed away, so I started writing about that because it was pretty much all I could write about."
May 2001
Cincinnati CityBeat
Review: The Pharmacist's Mate
My Drug Buddy
By Brad Quinn
"As Fusselman suggests, the two narrators move The Pharmacist's Mate out of the genre of memoir; though, just how the book should be categorized is a difficult question. Perhaps the book could be called a non-fiction novel. Perhaps it doesn't make any difference. By any definition, The Pharmacist's Mate is a poetic and compelling book."
May 2001
Willamette Week
(OR)
A Pregnant Idea
By Susan Wickstrom
"The Pharmacist's Mate is Fusselman's very personal story of dealing with her father's death while grappling with her own infertility. 'All my writing has been really personal,' says Fusselman. 'I went to school for poetry at Boston University, which is a hotbed—the Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton mecca. It's just what you do.' "
May 2001
NOW Toronto
Review: The Pharmacist's Mate
Boat People
By Matt Galloway
"Dave Eggers and those wacky
folks at McSweeney's held a contest on their Web site (www.mcsweeneys.net) in which they offered to publish the best book a reader could write about electrical engineering on boats.
What they got was this moving sliver of a novel by New York writer Amy Fusselman that has almost nothing to do with the proposed subject but everything to do with every other major issue in life."
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Additional Links
"Delicate Condition" Tour Diary
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