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From Stephen Elliott
Laura van den Berg’s debut collection of short stories, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, creates a nuanced portrayal of female isolation and independence, featuring women who grapple with their careers, their lovers, and the occasional mythical creature in worlds as far as Madagascar and the Congo.
Welcome to 2011! What do we call this decade, anyway? Who will win the Super Bowl? What will become of health care reform? How many New York City snowplows does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Some questions are impossible to answer.
...moreThe panic that pervades these stories arises because in our real, human world there is too much cause for fear and worry. Who, exactly, is responsible for the deteriorating environment? What, precisely, causes terrorism? Enter the bugbears and scapegoats.
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It’s a Sunday, and it’s the day after Halloween. What makes for a better hangover than reading an excellent bunch of book reviews?
Loss and longing sit side-by-side with unexpected humor in Laura van den Berg’s stories, reminding readers of the strange things we encounter every day.
Short fiction is often spoken of in terms of genre, a genre of ephemeral writing that is erased from the mind as quickly as it was most likely written. But the fallacy in this is that genre presupposes a style and tendency.
Obsession distorts the lens through which we view the world; things that once seemed unfathomable become terrifically and terrifyingly plausible.
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