We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

A MARIAN WOOD BOOK

Published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons

Publishers Since 1838

Published by the Penguin Group

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Published simultaneously in Canada

The passages from Franz Kafka’s “A Report for an Academy” are quoted from a translation prepared by Ian Johnston of Malaspina University-College (now Vancouver Island University), Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. The poem by Issa is quoted from a translation that appeared on Yoshi Mikami’s Issa’s Haiku home page. Lyrics are quoted from “The Hukilau Song” by Jack Owens, and “Love Potion No. 9” by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fowler, Karen Joy.

We are all completely beside ourselves / Karen Joy Fowler.

p. cm.

“A Marian Wood book.”

ISBN 978-1-101-59568-8

1. Families—Fiction. 2. Self-realization in women—Fiction. 3. Human-animal relationships—Fiction. 4. Life change events—Fiction. 5. Domestic fiction. 6. Psychological fiction. I. Title.

PS35556.O844W4 2013 2013000988

813'.54—dc23

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.