The Dying Athabaskan

Hired to interview a Canadian artist on the 25th anniversary of his most infamous creation, "The Dying Athabaskan," Ritu Agarwal wonders if she may be getting in over her head: Niall O'Keevan, a notorious fabulist, hates to talk about himself or his work and he has been known to spin lies and tell tales. Yet Ritu needs the work, and when she meets O'Keevan at his studio, he begins to tell her the story behind the sculpture of a bizarre, shattered man: how much of it is true, and has the young freelancer discovered the key when she wonders aloud if the statue is really three people pieced together into one monstrous form. . . ? "The Dying Athabaskan" won Twelve Winters Press's Publisher's Long Story Prize.