by Dave Eggers
First published 2018
This experimental literary collection arrives in a custom plastic bag containing eight complete stories printed directly onto colorful party balloons. Readers must blow up each balloon to reveal the text within. The inflatable stories come from Carmen Maria Machado, Percival Everett, Lauren Groff, Kima Jones, Amelia Gray, Rebecca Makkai, and Sarah Wisby. A vinyl hardcover book accompanies the balloons, featuring additional work from Lesley Nneka Arimah, Jamie Figueroa, Namwali Serpell, C Pam Zhang, and other contributors. The stories explore strange territories: someone develops an unexplainable craving for eating forks, naked single women populate an entire world, deceased fathers overrun a city like pests, and a mummified bishop's severed torso holds supernatural properties. The format transforms reading into performance art, allowing readers to decorate parties with literature, meditate by popping completed stories, or watch the balloons dance through the air after release.
Genres: short-stories, literary-fiction, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, thought-provoking, whimsical
Tropes: found-family, strange-territories
100 pages · Hardcover · McSweeney's Publishing