Stories No One Hopes Are about Them
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- $26.99
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- $26.99
Publisher Description
2023 Lammy Award for Bisexual Fiction, shortlist
At once playfully dark and slyly hopeful, Stories No One Hopes Are about Them explores convergences of power, privilege, and place. Characters who are ni de aquí, ni de allá—neither from here nor there—straddle competing worlds, disrupt paradigms, and transition from objects of other people’s stories to active subjects and protagonists of their own. Narratives of humanity and environment entwine with nuanced themes of colonization, queerness, and evolution at the forefront. Big things happen in this collection. But it’s also a collection of small intimacies: misremembered names, chipped teeth, and private rituals; unexpected alliances and barely touched knees beneath uniform skirts; minutiae of the natural world; incidents that quietly, achingly, and delightfully transgress the familiar.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Bermudez's captivating and mischievous debut collection, protagonists search for meaning and deal with other people's entitlement. The queer narrator of "The Real India" works as an artist's assistant to Lark, who leans on the narrator in efforts to maintain her cultural currency. One of Lark's sculptures is titled Cunt Bodhisattva, and she pulls the narrator along on a trip to India to figure out how to talk about her work. Former cleaner Marta leaves her girlfriend and defies a court order by traveling from Minnesota to Antarctica to delay her embezzlement trial in "Obscure Trivia of the Antarctic." She's in a small tourist group of outrageously wealthy people who have signed up for a series of freezing and thrilling adventures, and who consume copious amounts of booze. "There is a tradition...of burying a secret in the snow," the guide says, causing Marta to think about what might have happened had she stayed put. "Octopus" follows a teenage narrator during a transformative summer working as a princess at a Florida theme park. The demands of her job make her feel like she's missing out on the fun, despite being surrounded by cacophonous action among her colleagues who perform roles as fairies and villains. Bermudez eloquently and powerfully writes of objectification and exploitation. This is a must-read.
