Genevieve Plunkett's debut collection of stories, Prepare Her, is now available. A recipient of an O. Henry Award, her short fiction can also be found in New England Review, Southern Review, Crazyhorse, Colorado Review, Literary Hub, and The Best Small Fictions 2018. Her novel, In the Lobby of the Dream Hotel, is forthcoming.
At Electric Lit Plunkett claims "that it is the nature of intimacy to be surprising, frightening, and sometimes downright otherworldly..." and tagged "seven books that approach intimacy from this angle, that hunger for human connection in the corners of the unexpected and strange." One title on the list:
Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-BrenyahRead about the other entries on the list at Electric Lit.
When intimacy exists in dystopia, it can appear alien, or uncanny, in contrast to its surroundings. In Adjei-Brenyah’s story “The Era,” a high schooler named Ben, begins to fall for a girl despite a life’s worth of programming against emotional decision-making and compassion. It is with a backward, convex, kind of thrill that we watch intimacy for the sake of intimacy become an act of rebellion. By creating a future that is whittled down to the bare, ugly essentials, Adjei-Brenyah makes us crave the complexity and disorder of the heart more than ever.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
