Rainbow Rainbow
Stories
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Longlisted for The Story Prize & the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection
A fearless collection of stories that celebrate the humor, darkness, and depth of emotion of the queer and trans experience that's not typically represented: liminal or uncertain identities, queer conception, and queer joy
In this exuberant, prize-winning collection, queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming characters seek love and connection in hilarious and heartrending stories that reflect the complexity of our current moment.
A nonbinary writer on the eve of top surgery enters into a risky affair during the height of COVID. A lesbian couple enlists a close friend as a sperm donor, plying him with a potent rainbow-colored cocktail. A lonely office worker struggling with their gender identity chaperones their nephew to a trans YouTube convention. And in the depths of a Midwestern winter, a sex-addicted librarian relies on her pet ferrets to help resist a relapse at a wild college fair.
Capturing both the dark and lovable sides of the human experience, Rainbow Rainbow establishes debut author Lydi Conklin as a fearless new voice for their generation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Conklin delves into moments of decision, loss, and self-discovery among a set of queer characters in this superior debut collection. In "Laramie Time," a lesbian cartoonist agrees to pursue motherhood with her girlfriend and finds that the planning process defies her expectations. Conklin refreshingly illuminates the anxieties and longings of the early pandemic in "Pink Knives," in which a nonbinary narrator in an open relationship navigates a hookup before having top surgery. In the collection's most aching entry, "Sunny Talks," a secretly nonbinary person chaperones their out trans nephew, who is a minor YouTube celebrity, at a convention for trans vloggers. Conklin brings nuance and compassion to the subject matter and displays a captivating interest in human contradiction. Conklin's command of structure ensures that each story has a satisfying arc, but most impressive is the author's precise and evocative prose. Striking images dot the collection like jewels, as in "A Fearless Moral Inventory," about a sex addict who swears off an annual street fair: "The sun was a red rip on the horizon, gilding the doughnut of the sleeping ferrets in their cage." This talented writer is brimming with skills and heart.
