The Swan

OOBR Award winning Nicu’s Spoon presents The Swan, by Elizabeth Egloff, winner of the Kesselring Prize and Oppenheimer Award. Fierce in its treatment of love, The Swan provides a mysterious gloss on whether or not we descended from the beasts and what we may feel when we find them lurking in our truest selves.

Dora Hand lives by herself in a suburb on the Nebraska prairie. She’s gone through three husbands and now seems destined to play the lonely mistress to her married milkman, Kevin–until a swan crashes into her living room window setting Dora on a harrowing journey. She names him Bill, and to all outward appearances, Bill is a charismatic and child-like man. At first endearing himself to Dora like a pet she can train, Bill quickly learns the ropes of being human: speech, dressing, checkers, beer…and love for his mistress. All at once, Dora finds herself dangerously entangled with the swan, whose animal devotion to her threatens her already neglected lover and ultimately her sense of self.