The Peanutbutter Sisters and Other American Stories

"The Peanutbutter sisters are descendants of an immigrant who “ditched his foreign name” to rename his offspring after a quintessential American food. But in recycling waste into a thriving business, riding hurricanes, and hitchhiking on whales, the sisters’ adventures are less about assimilation and more about reinventing the universe. Visual and linguistic jokes abound in other Rumi Hara tales: True love literally becomes “tree love” when two lovers are conjoined by their tree-heads; Mad Max and the parable of the Tortoise and the Hare infuse a post-apocalyptic, intergalactic race of “living things” that use repurposed vehicles to conquer harsh climate and forbidding terrains. Hara’s bold visions remap America in a time of environmental degradation, systemic prejudice, and lingering pandemic effects."