Out there : stories

A thrilling new voice in fiction injects the absurd into the everyday to present a startling vision of modern life, “[as] if Kafka and Camus and Bradbury were penning episodes of Black Mirror ” (Chang-Rae Lee, author of My Year Abroad ). “Stories so sharp and ingenious you may cut yourself on them while reading.”—Kelly Link, author of Get In Trouble FINALIST FOR THE CALIFORNIA BOOK AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Chicago Review of Books, Kirkus Reviews With a focus on the weird and eerie forces that lurk beneath the surface of ordinary experience, Kate Folk’s debut collection is perfectly pitched to the madness of our current moment. A medical ward for a mysterious bone-melting disorder is the setting of a perilous love triangle. A curtain of void obliterates the globe at a steady pace, forcing Earth’s remaining inhabitants to decide with whom they want to spend eternity. A man fleeing personal scandal enters a codependent relationship with a house that requires a particularly demanding level of care. And in the title story, originally published in The New Yorker, a woman in San Francisco uses dating apps to find a partner despite the threat posed by “blots,” preternaturally handsome artificial men dispatched by Russian hackers to steal data. Meanwhile, in a poignant companion piece, a woman and a blot forge a genuine, albeit doomed, connection. Prescient and wildly imaginative, Out There depicts an uncanny landscape that holds a mirror to our subconscious fears and desires. Each story beats with its own fierce heart, and together they herald an exciting new arrival in the tradition of speculative literary fiction. With a focus on the weird and eerie forces that lurk beneath the surface of ordinary experience, Kate Folks debut short story collection is perfectly pitched to the madness of our current moment. A medical ward for a mysterious bone-melting disorder is the setting of a perilous love triangle. A curtain of void obliterates the globe at a steady pace, forcing Earths remaining inhabitants to decide with whom they want to spend eternity. A man fleeing personal scandal enters a codependent relationship with a house that requires a particularly demanding level of care. And in the title story, originally published in "The New Yorker," a woman in San Francisco uses dating apps to find a partner despite the threat posed by blots, preternaturally handsome artificial men dispatched by Russian hackers to steal data. Meanwhile, in a poignant companion piece, a woman and a blot forge a genuine, albeit doomed, connection. Prescient and wildly imaginative, Out There depicts an uncanny landscape that holds a mirror to our subconscious fears and desires. Each story beats with its own fierce heart, and together they herald an exciting new arrival in the tradition of speculative literary fiction. "Full of indelible characters and darkly comic twists, the stories in Kate Folk's debut collection are perfectly pitched for the madness of our modern moment. A ward for a mysterious bone-melting disorder is the scene of a perilous love triangle. A curtain of void obliterates the globe at a steady pace, leaving one woman to decide whom she wants to spend eternity with. A woman navigates finding a partner while beautiful humanoid robots called "blots" have infiltrated the dating apps of San Francisco, dispatched by Russian hackers to steal data. And in a companion piece, a woman and a blot find connection in an unexpected yet tender love story. As this debut collection explores what it means to face the void, human beings try to find their way in bizarre and dystopic settings, whether their own body, their relationships, their home, or the world at large. Imaginative, genre-bending, and oddly prescient, Out There depicts a landscape that is eminently of-the-moment, terrifying but ultimately hopeful"-- Provided by publisher