17 Jan / Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu [in Booklist]
*STARRED REVIEW
Lauded Vancouver-born, Seattle-domiciled poet-novelist Kim Fu (The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore, 2018) presents a dozen sly, provocative, fabulous short stories sure to delight and shock. From doll parts to winged ankles to stockpiled gold bars, Fu flaunts an inimitable imagination. She deftly parses death in various situations, including a suicide attempt via time machine in “Time Cubes,” a couple’s mutual murders in “Twenty Hours,” a whole family’s annihilation by accident and hanging in “The Doll,” and an unintended runaway bride’s watery subsummation in “Bridezilla.”
Missed loved ones get reanimated in “Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867” and inspire a sister’s potential revenge killing-in-the-making in “#ClimbingNation.” Abusive lovers get exposed in “Scissors,” during a sexually charged theater performance, and in “June Bugs,” in which the abused attempts to flee the abuser. A young student does not leap to her death in “Liddy, First to Fly,” a chronic insomniac finally gets to sleep in “The Sandman,” the violent die violently in “In This Fantasy,” and a graphic designer creates tasteful immersive experiences in “Do You Remember Candy.”
Speculative elements so adroitly and casually inserted into seemingly realistic narratives seem to be stoking a growing genre. Fu joins recent maestros Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (Friday Black, 2018), Charles Yu (Sorry Please Thank You, 2012), and Seong-nan Ha (Bluebeard’s First Wife, 2020) in creating irrefutably fantastic fiction.
Review: “Fiction,” Booklist, January 1&15, 2022
Readers: Adult
Published: 2022