Atavists

From Lydia Milletthe American writer with the funniest, wisest grasp on how we fool ourselves (Chicago Tribune)comes an inventive new collection of short fiction. Atavists follows a group of families, couples, and loners in their collisions, confessions, and conflicts in a post-pandemic America of artificially lush lawns, beauty salons, tech-bro mansions, assisted-living facilities, big-box stores, gastropubs, college campuses, and medieval role-playing festivals. The various -ists who people these linked storiesfrom futurists to insurrectionists to cosmetologistsinclude a professor whos morbidly fixated on an old friends Instagram account; a woman convinced that her bright young son-in-law is watching geriatric porn; a bodybuilder who lives an incels fantasy life; a couple who surveil the neighbors after finding obscene notes in their mailbox; a pretentious academic accused of plagiarism; and a suburban ex-marathoner dad obsessed with hosting refugees in a tiny house in his backyard.