by Laila Lalami
First published 2016
In this collection of stories, characters navigate a world where familiar rules no longer apply. A man discovers his trousers have taken on a life of their own, defying logic and expectation. Neighbors find themselves speaking languages they never learned. Ordinary people confront situations that bend reality at its edges. Each story drops readers into moments where the absurd becomes routine and the routine becomes impossible. The characters struggle to make sense of displacement, whether physical or emotional, as they move through landscapes both geographical and psychological. Laila Lalami crafts these tales with sharp wit and unexpected tenderness, revealing how people adapt when the ground shifts beneath their feet. The stories move between different styles and tones, some comic, others melancholy, all examining what it means to exist in spaces where nothing feels quite right. At its heart, this collection captures the particular loneliness of being perpetually out of place.
Genres: short-stories, literary-fiction, contemporary, magical-realism
Vibes: intimate, thought-provoking, whimsical
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, surreal
Setting: Algeria
Period: 21st-century
144 pages · Kindle Edition · Deep Vellum Publishing