The Age of Calamities
Stories
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Written by an inimitable new voice, The Age of Calamities is a genre-defying, mind-bending collection of absurdist, funny, and speculative short stories.
In this bold debut collection, Senaa Ahmad pushes the boundaries of history and its figures, sending the reader on a thrilling ride. In “Let’s Play Dead,” Henry VIII wants Anne Boleyn gone, but there’s a tiny problem—she keeps coming back to life no matter what he does. “Choose Your Own Apocalypse” hurls readers back to 1945, where they assume the role of a technician for the Manhattan Project, confronted with labyrinthine paths and harrowing outcomes. And “Inside the House of the Historian” invites us to a dinner party turned murder mystery full of figures like Nefertiti, Queen Victoria, John Adams, and Marilyn Monroe. These stories and others entice readers to confront the past, the present, and themselves all at once. Zany and haunting, inviting and brilliant, each poignant tale delves into the surreal and tragicomic nature of the present through the lens of yesterday.
The Age of Calamities is an evocation of life and death on history’s unsteady margins, of how to reckon with the blunt-force trauma of ill-fated times. Fiercely clever and wildly inventive, this debut establishes Senaa Ahmad as a literary force.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ahmad debuts with an ambitious collection of stories that take novel approaches to significant moments in history. The opener, "Let's Play Dead," is a clever and mischevious retelling of Anne Boleyn's 1536 beheading after her conviction on false charges of adultery and treason. The executioner has a tough time getting the job done, which presages the story's fantastical twist, as Anne's body spasms back to life and she reattaches her head, then goes on to survive subsequent executions. In "The Houseguest," an actor plays Lizzie Borden, who was accused of killing her father and stepmother with an axe in 1892, in a film called Axe-Woman, which spawns a popular franchise (as one fan writes in an online review, "seven thumbs up / im growing more thumbs in a vat so i can give it so many goddamn thumbs up"). "Choose Your Own Apocalypse," written in the second person, takes place in Los Alamos, N.Mex., in 1945, where a woman scientist dreads the testing and use of the atomic bomb and reckons with the "part-physicist, part-mystic" appeal of Dr. Oppenheimer ("You'd assumed, with enough time and careful observation, that you might absorb this enigmatic patina as well. You were incorrect"). With each story, Ahmad offers a satisfying exploration of feminine defiance. The result is arresting.
