The Instinct for Bliss — Melissa Pritchard

From the gourmet cook in "Sweet Feed" preparing a last supper for a condemned prisoner to the anorexic girl in "Eating for Theodora" feeding herself holy dirt, each of these eleven stories grapples with the visceral and bloody aspect of human nature and our instinct to rise above it. This collection won the 1996 Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for best fiction by an American woman.