I loved "If I Survive You" because it's a linked story collection that more than justifies its form. Rather than being a fragmented novel or a collection of stories with a very tenuous throughline, Escoffery creates a unified statement while still providing a complete journey within each story. I walked away from this book not only thinking about race, identity, and family but also about legacy—what does success really mean, and who gets to have it?
'Kaleidoscopic, urgent, hilarious, revelatory' MARLON JAMES
'An absolute delight to read' DIANA EVANS
'Superb ... A strong, much needed new voice in our literature' PERCIVAL EVERETT
'A compelling hurricane of a book' ANN PATCHETT
A major debut that follows a Jamaican family in Miami navigating recession, racism and Hurricane Andrew.
1979. Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But they soon learn that the welcome in America will be far from warm.
Trelawny, their youngest son, comes of age in a society which regards him with suspicion, greeting him…
These stories are grounded in horror—there's no shortage of zombies and ghosts. But this collection isn't merely a genre exercise. Enriquez uses these stories to interrogate ideas about fascism, family, and desire. Argentina's troubled political history is foregrounded, lending each story a darkness that's richer and more disturbing than the monsters of run-of-the-mill horror. When the macabre is mixed up with real-world threats, there's a creepiness that stays with the reader long after they've put the book down.
'Beautiful, horrible... the most exciting discovery I've made in fiction for some time' Kazuo Ishiguro 'Smoky, carnal, dazzling' Lauren Groff
Welcome to Buenos Aires, a place of nightmares and twisted imaginings, where missing children come back from the dead and unearthed bones carry terrible curses.
Thrumming with murderous intentions, family betrayals and morbid desires, these stories shine a light on a violent city gripped by urban madness; giving voice to the lost, the oppressed and the forgotten. Lucid and darkly poetic, unsettling and otherworldly, these tales of revenge, witchcraft and fetishes are a masterpiece…
Moshfegh likes the macabre; in each of these stories, the human body isn't an object of desire. It's an emitter of fluids, smells, growths, etc. There are no angels here. The protagonists in each story grapple with difficult choices and often choose the most morally questionable way forward. Though each piece in this collection stands on its own, they're connected by their examination of humanity's dark side. This is a distinctively (though not deliciously) modern look at ugliness in its many forms.
An electrifying first collection from one of the most exciting short story writers of our time
"I can't recall the last time I laughed this hard at a book. Simultaneously, I'm shocked and scandalized. She's brilliant, this young woman."-David Sedaris
Ottessa Moshfegh's debut novel Eileen was one of the literary events of 2015. Garlanded with critical acclaim, it was named a book of the year by The Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle, nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award, short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and won…
This collection is most concerned with queer identity—characters who are firm in their values get challenged while others struggle to define their beliefs. Across a range of genres (e.g., pulp thriller, romance, speculative, etc.), queer Black men are elevated from "the other" to three-dimensional protagonists with relatable problems. Everyone in this book is seeking clarity about who they are, echoing a struggle that most of us endure at some point in our lives. They don't always succeed, but they emerge from each scuffle forever changed.
