Proper Name collects for the first time the inimitable stories of Bernadette Mayer—"one of the most original writers of her generation" (The Washington Post).

The nineteen narratives of Proper Name include "My Excellent Novel," "Ice Cube Epigrams," "Essay: How Carefully Do We Tend?" and "Juan Gave Nora a Pomegranate." Mayer's structural inventions are terrific and unique. As Fanny Howe remarked in The American Book Review, "In a language made up of idiom and lyricism, Mayer cancels the boundaries between prose and poetry."