Get in Trouble
By Kelly Link
- Release Date: 2015-02-03
- Genre: Literary Fiction
Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • A bewitching story collection from the author of White Cat, Black Dog and The Book of Love, hailed as “the most darkly playful voice in American fiction” (Michael Chabon) and “our greatest living fabulist” (Carmen Maria Machado)
“Ridiculously brilliant . . . These stories make you laugh while staring into the void.”—The Boston Globe
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: BuzzFeed, Time, The Washington Post, NPR, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Slate, Toronto Star, Kirkus Reviews, BookPage
Kelly Link has won an ardent following for her ability, with each new short story, to take readers deeply into an unforgettable, brilliantly constructed fictional universe. The nine exquisite examples in this collection show her in full command of her formidable powers. In “The Summer People,” a young girl in rural North Carolina serves as uneasy caretaker to the mysterious, never-quite-glimpsed visitors who inhabit the cottage behind her house. In “I Can See Right Through You,” a middle-aged movie star makes a disturbing trip to the Florida swamp where his former on- and off-screen love interest is shooting a ghost-hunting reality show. In “The New Boyfriend,” a suburban slumber party takes an unusual turn, and a teenage friendship is tested, when the spoiled birthday girl opens her big present: a life-size animated doll.
Hurricanes, astronauts, evil twins, bootleggers, Ouija boards, iguanas, The Wizard of Oz, superheroes, the Pyramids . . . These are just some of the talismans of an imagination as capacious and as full of wonder as that of any writer today. But as fantastical as these stories can be, they are always grounded by sly humor and an innate generosity of feeling for the frailty—and the hidden strengths—of human beings. In Get in Trouble, this one-of-a-kind talent expands the boundaries of what short fiction can do.
Reviews
Gets gimmicky fast
3By doug funnieI truly enjoyed 3 or 4 of the 8 or 9 stories. The author’s schtick gets pretty tiring pretty quickly though. At first you think it’s great, very novel, but by the end you’ve got a bead on what she’s doing, and it’s not nearly as impressive, just a bunch of tossed-off fantasy ideas that junk up the story.Modern Fairy Tales That Are Never What You Expect!
4By Prairie_DogThis is the third volume of Kelly Link's short stories that I have read, and they certainly don't disappoint. They are always surprising, just when you think you have them figured out, they go off in an unexpected direction. These stories are themed around the character getting into some sort of trouble, thus the name of the collection. Usually, the trouble is of their own making, sometimes it unexpectedly finds them. Poor decisions are usually involved, or maybe they are good decisions? It all depends on how the reader views the situation. These sometimes are dreamlike fantasies. Sometimes the stories seem grounded in a gritty reality, but it isn't the reality you are familiar with. The only thing I didn't like about this book is its cover. With so many images from the stories that could have been used, why they selected the ugly graffiti-like text they did is beyond me.
