Burning Girls and Other Stories
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A Most Anticipated in 2021 Pick for The Independent | Buzzfeed | The Nerd Daily
When we came to America, we brought anger and socialism and hunger. We also brought our demons.
In Burning Girls and Other Stories, Veronica Schanoes crosses borders and genres with stories of fierce women at the margins of society burning their way toward the center. This debut collection introduces readers to a fantasist in the vein of Karen Russell and Kelly Link, with a voice all her own.
Emma Goldman—yes, that Emma Goldman—takes tea with the Baba Yaga and truths unfold inside of exquisitely crafted lies. In "Among the Thorns," a young woman in seventeenth century Germany is intent on avenging the brutal murder of her peddler father, but discovers that vengeance may consume all that it touches. In the showstopping, awards finalist title story, "Burning Girls," Schanoes invests the immigrant narrative with a fearsome fairytale quality that tells a story about America we may not want—but need—to hear.
Dreamy, dangerous, and precise, with the weight of the very oldest tales we tell, Burning Girls and Other Stories introduces a writer pushing the boundaries of both fantasy and contemporary fiction.
With a foreword by Jane Yolen
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Schanoes reinterprets and unpacks old, familiar tales in this powerful debut collection of 13 speculative stories. The pieces vary in subgenre, including fabulism, historical fantasy, and surrealism, but all are united by common threads of revolution, female power, revenge, and trauma both historical and personal. "The Revenant," told with a mild, distant tone that belies its deadly serious subject matter, reimagines the urban legend of Bloody Mary. In "Phosphorus," a woman dying of "phossy jaw" joins a factory girls' strike. The Shirley Jackson Award winning title novella is the standout, following Deborah, a Jewish witch and healer, as she flees anti-Semitic violence in 19th-century Poland while being pursued by a jealous demon. Dark pacts, willful daughters, and young punks in fishnets abound, and the collection suffers somewhat from the limited range of perspectives, with a few of the pieces striking similar notes. But at their best, these stories are rousing, political, and visceral, even gut-churning. Fans of Kirsty Logan, Daniel Mallory Ortberg, or Catherynne M. Valente will find much to enjoy.
