American Mastodon

Winner of the St. Lawrence Book Award, AMERICAN MASTODON presents a land of absences, monsters, perfect sandwiches, and opposites. Here Sasquatch hides in Sears at Christmas. The night sky remembers a dog that died in orbit, compliments of the Soviets. And here, in the beginning, a five-foot-four human girl was sniffed for by the hounds who stayed on Earth. Ricca presents a surreal world located two steps to the left of our own, capable of not only laughter, but terrible violence and pain.

A poem from the book, "The Beautiful Sandwich," was featured on A Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor.