The 2000 fiction winner of the Editors’ Prize was “Coney Island in Winter” by Dana Kinstler Standefer. It’s the story of a woman, who, concerned for her weight, drinks only iced coffee or Tab for lunch. She works for the androgynous Bob Scheinman, a designer of party dresses, and the story revolves around their relationship, and her own aspirations to become a designer. There’s an odd sexual tension to their relationship from the start that begins to escalate once she makes her designing aspirations apparent to him. He even suggests they make a baby together. However, Bob is dying-it’s never revealed what he is dying of, but it’s not hard to guess. The story has a theme which, interestingly, explores both weight-obsession and androgyny, observing how the fashion world appeals to a fantasy of what women want to become, making the “normal” woman more of an androgynous figure.
–Darren Pine
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