![]() ![]() Ma calls Kafka her ”bread and butter.”įarrar, Straus, and Giroux, hardcover, 240 pp., $26, us. Very Kafkaesque, this weird mix of horror and humor. In Ma’s story, “Tomorrow,” a pregnant woman finds that she must live with her unborn child’s forearm protruding penis-like from her vagina. As in the horror of Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed into a gigantic beetle. In a Kirkus interview, the author said she often works in the horror genre. In Ma’s world, no good deed goes unpunished. In one story, “Oranges,” the narrator, the survivor of an abusive relationship, becomes obsessed with trying to warn her ex’s current girlfriend about him. And when they dare to do something decisive, things inevitably go wrong. They don’t know who they are or what they want. Ling Ma’s stories are about people who don’t fit in, who don’t feel at home, even in their own skin. Or the fact that there is always something savage and dark behind her polished prose. Or her sentences-carefully crafted, but not too carefully. It might be her distinctive voice-wry, witty, relatable. There was something urgent in Ma’s writing, something that demanded full attention. ![]() ![]() I started reading it Thanksgiving morning and literally could not stop. But Ling Ma’s short story collection, Bliss Montage, was different. Best of Chicago 2022: Sports & RecreationĬredit: Courtesy Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.Best of Chicago 2022: Music & Nightlife. ![]()
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