Out There: Stories

By Kate Folk

Book Overview

A thrilling new voice in fiction injects the absurd into the everyday to present a startling vision of modern life, "[as] if Kafka and Camus and Bradbury were penning episodes of Black Mirror" (Chang-Rae Lee, author of My Year Abroad).

"Stories so sharp and ingenious you may cut yourself on them while reading."--Kelly Link, author of Get In Trouble

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Kirkus Reviews

With a focus on the weird and eerie forces that lurk beneath the surface of ordinary experience, Kate Folk's debut collection is perfectly pitched to the madness of our current moment. A medical ward for a mysterious bone-melting disorder is the setting of a perilous love triangle. A curtain of void obliterates the globe at a steady pace, forcing Earth's remaining inhabitants to decide with whom they want to spend eternity. A man fleeing personal scandal enters a codependent relationship with a house that requires a particularly demanding level of care. And in the title story, originally published in The New Yorker, a woman in San Francisco uses dating apps to find a partner despite the threat posed by "blots," preternaturally handsome artificial men dispatched by Russian hackers to steal data. Meanwhile, in a poignant companion piece, a woman and a blot forge a genuine, albeit doomed, connection.

Prescient and wildly imaginative, Out There depicts an uncanny landscape that holds a mirror to our subconscious fears and desires. Each story beats with its own fierce heart, and together they herald an exciting new arrival in the tradition of speculative literary fiction.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0593231465
• ISBN13: 9780593231463
• Release Date: March 2022
• Publisher: Random House
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.6" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

excellent

This is a great selection of short stories. I may place them in the genre of sci-horror-feminism. She really seems to explore the insecurities that adult women experience; particularly among female peers. Not every story hits, but when they do, they hit very well.

Fast Read

The stories are odd and explore some interesting themes in strange ways, which I, a lover of strange books, absolutely love. That being said, the stories in this anthology were not my favorite, more I didn't care for than did, but it is a fast read.