American Innovations

A short-story collection from one of Americas brightest young talents. In one of these intensely imaginative stories a young womans furniture walks out on her. In another, the narrator feels compelled to deliver a takeout order that has incorrectly been phoned in to her. In a third, the petty details of a property transaction illuminate the complicated dependences and loves of a family. Following spiralling paths towards utterly logical, entirely absurd conclusions, Galchens creations occupy a dreamlike dimension, where time is fluid and identities are best defined by the qualities they lack. The tales in this groundbreaking collection are secretly in conversation with canonical stories, allowing the reader the pleasure of discovering familiar favourites in new guises. Here The Lost Order covertly recapitulates James Thurbers The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, while The Region of Unlikeness playfully mirrors Jorge Luis Borgess The Aleph. By turns realistic, fantastical and lyrical, all these marvellously uneasy stories share a deeply emotional core and are written in dryly witty, pitch-perfect prose. Whether exploring the tensions in a mother-daughter relationship or the finer points of time travel, Galchen is a writer of eye-opening ingenuity.