Severance

'In concept, Severance is brilliant. In execution, it's even better - beautiful, hilarious, horrifying and humane' - Dave EggersThe human head remains in a state of consciousness for one and a half minutes after decapitation. In a heightened state of emotion, people speak at a rate of 160 words per minute. Inspired by this, Robert Olen Butler wrote Severance, sixty-two vignettes each exactly 240 words in length, that capture the flow of thoughts that go through a person's mind after their head has been severed. Here are the imagined ultimate words of famous and invented figures - Medusa, Sir Walter Raleigh, Anne Boleyn, Jayne Mansfield, and a chicken, beheaded for Sunday dinner.'Severance is a dazzling tour of history and humanity as told by those who have lost their heads. From the moment of death, we are given sixty-two perfect testaments to the joys of being alive. Robert Olen Butler has once again proven himself to be one of the most profoundly creative voices in fiction today' - Ann Patchett 'With Severance, Butler has one-upped himself... he has brought the dead back to life, through the limitless will of his imagination' - New York Times