In a topsy-turvy ragtime era of side-shows and bamboozlers, Irish Maupin goes from street urchin to burlesque star. Plucked from the streets as a girl and fattened up for candy-factory advertising, she navigates a sensational career around heart-break and loneliness, gaining and losing hundreds of pounds, manipulated by the men around her even as she defies them. From acclaimed Nebraska author Timothy Schaffert, this inaugural Ploughshares Solo is a surreal adult fairy tale about obesity, murder, and how we change our bodies to meet the needs of others.