
Staff Pick
AUCK OUT OF STOCK
WGTN IN STOCK
Pages:
288
Published:
Apr 2022
Format
Paperback
Publisher
Penguin Canada
ISBN:
9780143136620
Cassandra may have seen the future, but it doesn't mean she's resigned to telling the Trojans everything she knows. In this ebullient collection, virgins escape from being sacrificed, witches refuse to be burned, whores aren't ashamed, and every woman gets a chance to be a radioactive cockroach warrior who snaps back at catcallers. Gwen E. Kirby experiments with found structures - a Yelp review, a WikiHow article - which her fierce, irreverent narrators push against, showing how creativity within an enclosed space undermines and deconstructs the constraints themselves. When these women tell the stories of their triumphs as well as their pain, they emerge as funny, angry, loud, horny, lonely, strong protagonists who refuse be secondary characters a moment longer. From 'The Best and Only Whore of Cym Hyfryd, 1886' to the 'Midwestern Girl (who) is Tired of Appearing in Your Short Stories,' Kirby is playing and laughing with the women who have come before her and they are telling her, we have always been this way. You just had to know where to look.we have always been this way. You just had toknow where to look.
$35.00
Is this the best short story collection of all time? I couldn't say, but it's certainly my favourite. These stories of women from all ages & stages crackle with ferocious energy- sisters, newly divorced mothers, hags, radioactive cockroach girls; this book is deeply funny & cathartic & incredible.



