William Kotzwinkle Books in Order

A boy living in the Stone Age has yet to earn a name through his own experiences. When a herd of elephants passes his community in search of water, an encounter gives him a chance to change that.

An accident leaves George Dugan with five dollars, and he decides to share his sudden wealth with his friends and an old stranger. Treats and adventures follow as the gang discovers how quickly a windfall can disappear.

After a rainstorm, Jack watches water running through a gutter and spots an unexpected little ship floating past. The ordinary street becomes the setting for a brief fantasy as he observes the strange vessel on its journey.

Four fantasy stories follow a butterfly collector unsure of his identity, painted horses that become real, the world's oldest man, and a lumberjack made fairy king. The collection joins ordinary lives with unexpected transformations.

The life of Lakota leader Crazy Horse is connected with Korczak Ziolkowski's ambitious effort to carve his likeness into a mountain. This illustrated account follows the determination behind a monumental tribute in South Dakota's Black Hills.

This experimental novel weaves human experiences into a meditation on time and place. Its shifting tapestry of emotions leads toward the idea embodied by Hermes, god of roads: that distant moments and locations are ultimately connected.

An emperor commissions a magnificent palace of his own design, dismissing an old carpenter's wisdom and skill. This illustrated parable set in the Far East explores craftsmanship, humility, and the relationship between rulers, ordinary people, and the gods.

These erotic tales move between ancient Athens and the contemporary world of the 1970s. Kotzwinkle brings the two settings together in a work that crosses the boundaries between separate times.

Amid the rubbish, sheet music, and chaos of his Lower East Side apartment, perpetually stoned Horse Badorties pursues an abundance of schemes. His unruly inner life drives a comic portrait of an eccentric determined to follow his mission.

Jack and Joe spend a Saturday together in a small American town. Their day provides the setting for an illustrated story for beginning readers, following two boys through the ordinary world they share and explore.

A man and woman confront the death of their newborn child. This intimate novella follows the shock and grief of their loss, exploring how two parents endure an experience that transforms their lives.

A wisecracking laboratory rat guides readers through a grotesque world of animal experimentation. This satirical novel combines black humor with a disturbing look at the scientific uses humans find for other creatures.

Young Charles Pickett accompanies an anthropological expedition to Africa at the turn of the century. The group's investigation of humanity's past takes an unsettling turn when he fears a local healer has transformed its leader into a leopard.

In nineteenth-century Paris, police inspector Paul Ricard investigates the mysterious Ric Lazare. Lazare's fortune-telling machine has helped him enter fashionable society, but the device and its owner conceal questions the inspector must unravel.

After the First World War, a detective pursues a German officer and his companion across Europe and beyond. The investigation becomes an increasingly surreal journey through love, mystery, and strange encounters, illustrated by Joe Servello.

A tribe of giant ants steals the Great Timepiece, bringing time throughout the world to a standstill. With Mr. Feldhammer, the Keeper of Time, away on vacation, a frantic search begins to find him.

A farm boy leaves home to explore the world and reaches a lonely harbor. Caught by a rising storm, he encounters the ghosts of sailors emerging from the sea and must struggle to survive.

Herman refuses to take a nap, resisting the rest his mother wants him to have. When the Nap Master arrives, a journey into the Land of Dreams gives the stubborn child a different way to see sleep.

Jack Twiller grows up immersed in the comic books and popular culture of the 1940s and 1950s. Adopting heroic identities, he struggles toward adulthood through fantasies, religious warnings, and confused discoveries about love and desire.

A mysterious presence moves through Fontaine's department store on Christmas Eve, altering the lives of its staff and visitors. A domineering executive, a troubled Santa, and several lonely or eccentric people encounter unexpected possibilities.

Young Elliott befriends a stranded alien and brings him home, where the children hide their extraordinary visitor. When E.T. becomes dangerously ill and government agents intervene, Elliott must help his friend survive and return home.

A mysterious woman moves through Singapore's dark streets, appearing to men before vanishing and leaving them haunted. This illustrated narrative in verse follows the elusive figure and the unanswered questions surrounding her presence and purpose.

An ordinary man becomes consumed by his love for an enigmatic stranger. Their affair draws him into a sensuous mystery where obsession and the possibility of enchantment unsettle his familiar life.

Clark Kent returns to Smallville for his high school reunion, unaware that a dangerous computer genius has plans for Superman. His journey home brings a new technological threat into conflict with his secret identity.

After his time on Earth, E.T. loses his powers because his people believe he has been corrupted. Evading the Starcruiser fleet's guards, he tries to return to Elliott and help the boy navigate adolescence.

Fifteen stories range across the Italian Renaissance, imperial Russia, and the streets of New York. Kotzwinkle blends encounters with art, desire, and human strangeness in a collection that includes the erotic title tale.

An evening in an exotic Berlin nightclub draws the narrator into a world of murder, betrayal, and spectral decadence. Verse and Joe Servello's illustrations give form to a sensual experience that becomes increasingly dreamlike.

These fairy tales include a wooden carousel brought to life by a troll's magic and a butterfly catcher who dreams of becoming his quarry. Joe Servello's illustrations accompany encounters between ordinary people and the fantastic.

A child's imagination transforms an ordinary day into an adventure, turning stairs into mountains and familiar objects into wonders. From waking until bedtime, the small child's perspective reveals possibilities hidden within the much larger world of adults.

Hollywood actor David Caspian begins slipping into another existence in Nazi Germany, where he is hunted by the Gestapo. As the identities overlap, he must confront whether he is losing his mind or crossing through time.

Three illustrated stories travel through 1920s Paris, ancient Egypt, and a world of wandering performers. Jazz musicians, a dead pharaoh, and circus clowns encounter impossible events as myth and everyday reality begin to mingle.

Tabloid editor Howard Halliday becomes involved with a threatened porn star and a dangerous crime boss. His attempt to help pulls him and his eccentric colleagues into an escapade as improbable as their own sensational headlines.

Private investigator Jimmy McShane investigates an antiques dealer's ritualistic murder for the dead man's daughter. Egyptian artifacts and an ancient board game complicate the Manhattan inquiry as further deaths suggest that someone is putting a lethal design into practice.

A narrator discovers stories appearing on the blank pages of his dead uncle's notebook. Four tales within the framing narrative lead into enchanted places that exist beyond the boundaries of ordinary experience.

A valuable old teddy bear is kept in a millionaire's vault, treasured as a possession rather than a companion. Escaping that confinement sends him toward a different kind of home and people who understand his worth.

A Maine bear discovers a manuscript, claims it as his own, and heads for New York as novelist Hal Jam. Publishers embrace their apparently rugged new talent, launching a literary career whose success depends on everyone's willingness to overlook the obvious.

Billy and Betty love their dog Walter, but their father cannot tolerate his constant gas and plans to send him away. When burglars break into the house, the trait that threatens Walter's home may prove unexpectedly useful.

Sold at his family's yard sale, Walter ends up with a clown who puts his unusual talents to work inflating balloons. His new owner's criminal plans turn the dog's separation from his family into a dangerous adventure.

A professor's attempt to cure Walter's flatulence fails, and his father's homemade remedy leaves the dog floating away like a balloon. Carried far from home, Walter encounters creatures whose survival may depend on his troublesome digestive system.

An ambitious immortality project attracts scientists to a mysterious planet while a banished researcher warns of catastrophe. Space pirate Jockey Oldcastle and botanist Adrian Link become entangled in an undertaking threatened by crystalline transformations and enemies from another dimension.

Walter's smell gets him banished from a cruise ship to a lifeboat trailing behind it. When disaster strands the passengers at sea, the dog they wanted to avoid may have the unusual talent needed to help them.

After Walter's gas disrupts a seaside vacation, he is barred from the beach and confined indoors. When Billy, Betty and two disapproving neighbors become trapped on a sandbar, their rescue may depend on the dog they excluded.

Inspector Mantis and his companion Doctor Hopper investigate five mysteries in Victorian Bugland. The insect detectives leave their Flea Street lodgings to follow clues, question suspicious creatures, and unravel cases involving butterflies, caterpillars, and other residents.

A monk struggling with anger travels to Arizona to collect an inheritance from his crooked priest uncle. Instead of peace, Tommy Martini finds a charismatic cult leader, organized crime, and persistent threats to his vows and safety.

Tommy Martini returns to the corrupt mining town he hoped to leave behind after a former love disappears and a childhood friend is murdered. With help from another acquaintance, the monk investigates dangerous secrets beneath Coalville's decay.

This collection brings together sixteen short stories, including A Most Incredible Meal. Other pieces include The Doorman, The Bird Watcher, The Magician, The Great Liar, and the title story.