Also of interest…in new short fiction
Zero-Sum by Joyce Carol Oates (Knopf, $29)
“A vein of feminist horror runs through Joyce Carol Oates’ latest collection,” said Kate Folk in The New York Times. In one story, teenage girls ensnare sexual predators in a flypaperlike trap. In another, a parasitic entity grows out of a girl’s skull and wins her family’s favor. “While the final two, post-apocalyptic stories tread familiar ground, the overall trajectory feels satisfying, with the book’s zero-sum games advancing to an existential battle between humanity and the destructive forces it has unleashed.”
After the Funeral by Tessa Hadley (Knopf, $28)
“Tessa Hadley possesses a brilliance that is hard to overstate,” said Lauren LeBlanc in The Boston Globe. The “dependably brilliant” British novelist “always delivers fiction that cuts to the quick,” and her latest story collection is full of characters on the verge of upending their lives. In one tale, a former couple reconnect over drinks after a chance encounter. In another, a teenager on holiday grows uneasy with her parents. Each tale proves “impeccably literary, emotionally satisfying, yet unexpectedly unsettling.”
Onlookers by Ann Beattie (Scribner, $28)
For the characters in Ann Beattie’s new stories, “plans rarely work out as intended,” said Jackie ThomasKennedy in the Minneapolis
Star Tribune. All are residents of Charlottesville, Va., the university town shaken by a 2017 white supremacy march, and Beattie’s warm portraits focus on more personal worries and disappointments while not losing sight of that event. The standout characters, both women, are “sophisticated, idiosyncratic, and witty; they are also humbled by grief.”
The Beast You Are by Paul Tremblay (Morrow, $30)
Paul Tremblay’s latest collection “shows an author at the peaks of his powers doing everything he can to push the boundaries of the short story,” said Gabino Iglesias in NPR .org. “A wildly entertaining mix of literary horror, psychological suspense, science fiction, and even a short epic poem,” The Beast You Are “further cements Tremblay as one of the finest voices in modern horror fiction,” one who’s “as good at pulling heartstrings as he is at scaring and unsettling readers.”