The Two-Headed Man: Short Story (3 page)

Gowdy’s books, including three bestselling novels—
Mister Sandman
(1995),
The White Bone
(1998) and
The Romantic
(2003)—have been published in twenty-four countries. Gowdy has also had stories appear in a number of anthologies, including
Best American Short Stories, The New Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories in English
and the
Penguin Anthology of Stories by Canadian Women.

Gowdy has been nominated repeatedly for many prestigious literary awards: four times for the Trillium Award and two times each for the Giller Prize, the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.
The Romantic
earned her a Man Booker Prize nomination in 2003. In 1996, she was awarded the Marian Engel Award, which recognizes the complete body of work by a Canadian woman writer “in mid-career.” Nine years later, Ben Marcus praised Gowdy’s literary realism in
Harper’s Magazine,
singling her out as one of the few contemporary writers who has “pounded on the emotional possibilities of their mode, refusing to subscribe to worn-out techniques and storytelling methods.”

Barbara Gowdy has also appeared on television as a regular commentator on literary matters and has taught creative writing courses at Ryerson University. Her sixth novel,
Helpless,
was published by HarperCollins in 2007.

She lives in Toronto.

THROUGH THE GREEN VALLEY
FALLING ANGELS
MISTER SANDMAN
THE WHITE BONE
THE ROMANTIC
HELPLESS

“The Two-Headed Man” © 1992 by Barbara Gowdy.

All rights reserved.

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

This short story was originally published in
We So Seldom Look on Love
by Barbara Gowdy, first published in print form in 1992 by Somerville House Publising. First published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. in print form in 2001, and in an ePub edition in 2011.

Original epub edition (in
We So Seldom Look on Love
) April 2011 ISBN: 978-1-443-40248-4.

This ePub edition DECEMBER 2012 ISBN: 978-1-443-42186-7.

All rights reserved under all applicable International Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

HarperCollins books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use through our Special Markets Department.

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
2 Bloor Street East,
20th Floor Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M4W 1A8
www.harpercollins.ca

Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au

Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollins.ca

New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz

United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk

United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollins.com