Short Story Collections

With the long, hot summer ahead of us, I thought it would be nice to have a few quick, easy reads on our list. "What's a quicker read than a short story?," I thought, so here are a few new collections for your enjoyment.

Carmen Maria Machado is happy to obliterate the borders between genres in Her Body and Other Parties: Stories. These 8 stories relate the verisimilitude of women's lives and the violence that is often thrust upon them externally and internally. A wife refuses her husband's pleadings to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. Another woman recounts her sexual exploits as a plague sweeps through the world around her. A clerk in a mall makes a shocking discovery when she inspects seams of the prom dresses she has been selling. The included novella, "Especially Heinous," was inspired by Law & Order: SVU, but it smears the police procedural with all the hallmarks of a horror novel; including doppelgangers, ghosts, and girls with bells-for-eyes. If you lean toward the sci-fi/fantasy/horror novels, then this collection may be for you.

If you lean toward political intrigue, spy/war thrillers, and the like, then Will Mackin's Bring Out the Dog: Stories may be right up your alley. These 11 stories draw from Mackin's many deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. He would scribble notes in grease pencil on the inner side of his arm and make lists on the flaps torn from MRE kits. He used these notes in his journals and, years later, those journals became this book. The world he relates is one of intense bonds, archaic tenets, and unexpected compassion. These stories are set at home and abroad and reflect the dual reality of war--victory and loss. There is not an ounce of grandiosity to these stories, they are told with the keen eye of someone who has lived each scenario.

Nine stories comprise Kelly Barnhill's collection entitled Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories. This is another collection of stories that bend reality and drift toward the bizarre. In "Mrs. Sorensen and the Sasquatch," the titular widow decides to rekindle a long dormant relationship with a most unsuitable mate. The title story illustrates the strength and power--both known and unknown--of the imagination. In "Open the Door and the Light Pours Through," a young man struggles with intense grief and his sexuality in his letters to his long-distance love. Included in this collection is her award-winning novella "The Unlicensed Magician" which introduces the secret and magical life of an invisible girl who was once left for dead.

Finally, in Back Talk: Stories by Danielle Lazarin, women don't hate themselves, don't hate each other, not their mothers or sisters, their fathers, husbands, ex-husbands, and certainly not their children. Sound boring? Don't be so quick to judge. These women are just like you and I in that they are just trying to navigate the world without losing their minds. These 16 fresh, witty stories relate the ups and downs of strong, capable women and girls who still manage to be compassionate and tender.