Synopses & Reviews
A strange guidebook tells foreign visitors how to travel in a recognizable but dreamlike United States where mirrors are haunted and the Statue of Liberty wears a bowler hat; a supervisor in a department store must discipline his employees for failing to smile enough at their customers and finds himself unexpectedly drawn to the saddest of them all; a woman agrees to buy her daughter a robot pet to help her cope after a divorce, then is horrified when her little girl chooses an enormous spider for a companion. The characters in these mesmerizing stories find that the world they thought they knew has shifted and changed, become bizarre, disorienting, and, occasionally, miraculous. Told with absurdist humor and sweet sadness, is about being lost in places that are supposed to feel like home.
Review
"The stories in are so brilliant at unearthing the private pains and obsessions of their characters, after turning the final page one is left feeling as though they have been let in on a marvelous secret. Emily Mitchell is a masterful, magical writer, and is an astounding collection." Laura van den Berg, author of The Isle of Youth
Review
"Binding together and moving through this delectable collection there's a mystery, the one that makes you keep turning the pages, its insistent heartbeat that of the beloved, the forever lost, the world you thought you knew, whatever is always waiting for you just around the bend." Kathryn Davis, author of Duplex
Review
"Emily Mitchell's remarkable, innovative stories run the gamut of human experience--there are young lovers and old haters, there is laugh-out-loud funny stuff and melancholy reflection, straightforward plots and curvy free association. In short, this is a many-tentacled book of great variety, and it's exciting to see it unleashed upon the world." Dan Chaon, author of Await Your Reply
Synopsis
A guidebook introduces foreign visitors to a recognizable but dreamlike America, where mirrors are haunted and the Statue of Liberty wears a bowler hat. A department-store supervisor must discipline employees who don t smile enough at customers, but finds himself unexpectedly drawn to the saddest of them all. A woman reluctantly agrees to buy her daughter a robot pet, then is horrified when her little girl chooses an enormous mechanical spider for a companion. The characters in these stories find that the world they thought they knew has shifted and changed, become bizarre and disorienting, and, occasionally, miraculous. Told with absurdist humor and sweet sadness, Viral is about being lost in places that are supposed to feel like home.
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Synopsis
A dazzling collection about how the familiar can suddenly turn strange, for readers of Lydia Davis, George Saunders, and Karen Russell.
Synopsis
A dazzling collection of stories about how the familiar can suddenly turn strange.
About the Author
Emily Mitchell's stories have been published in Harper's, Ploughshares, New England Review, and elsewhere. She teaches at the University of Maryland. Her novel The Last Summer of the World was published in 2007. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.