This month’s short story releases feature collections that blend the peculiar with the profound, according to Eithne Farry’s reviews. Ben Pester’s “Sail Away Land,” Alejandra Kamiya’s “The Fallen Trees Are Also the Forest,” and Ruth Ozeki’s “The Typing Lady and other fictions” are noted for their unique explorations of emotion, memory, and the nature of storytelling.
“Sail Away Land” by Ben Pester offers a collection where characters navigate unsettling emotions and extraordinary circumstances. Pester’s protagonists find themselves in situations such as attending parties with unusual entrances or dealing with the mysterious return of family members. The stories often commence with everyday events before diverging into the odd, creating a sense of anxiety reminiscent of a dream, yet also described as “so beautiful and crazy and streaming with imagination.”
Alejandra Kamiya’s “The Fallen Trees Are Also the Forest,” translated by Daniel Hahn, presents 12 elegant and enigmatic stories. Inspired by Kamiya’s Japanese-Argentine heritage, these tales are imbued with memories, secrets, and a disquieting atmosphere. The prose is characterized as clear and cool, but with an underlying emotional intensity. The collection’s opening and closing stories, in particular, use precise details to build a sense of unease, such as a wife preparing breakfast or a mother and child observing a storm.
Ruth Ozeki’s “The Typing Lady and other fictions” is described as sparky and compassionate, focusing as much on the craft of writing and the writer’s role as on the characters’ experiences. One story, “Feelings,” reflects on the “voluptuous delirium of making things up” and the failure to recognize another’s pain. Other narratives include “The Anthropologist’s Kid,” which recalls childhood misbehavior, and “Leafblower,” depicting a complex situation involving a student, a woman with dementia, and her husband.
