by Aimee Bender
First published 2005
A schizophrenic man dreams of a secret society of demolition writers. An egg donor wrestles with second thoughts. A young girl discovers a ghostly portal. Aimee Bender's short stories delve into the surreal and unsettling corners of the human experience, where the mundane and the extraordinary collide. Bender's offbeat characters grapple with isolation, longing, and the fragility of identity, their lives shot through with moments of dark humor and unexpected beauty.
Genres: short-stories, literary-fiction, contemporary, magical-realism
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking, whimsical
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Period: 21st-Century
244 pages · Hardcover · Random House
Content warnings: mental-illness