There is only us / Zoe Ballering.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ballering, Zoe, 1990- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Loneliness--Fiction.

Loneliness.

Interpersonal relations--Fiction.

Interpersonal relations.

Genre:

Short stories.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (193 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Denton, Texas : University of North Texas Press, [2022]

Summary:

The eight stories of speculative fiction in There Is Only Us explore themes of loneliness, connectedness, and selfhood. Each one is an act of intimacy--an altered world shown through the lens of a close relationship. Brothers, sisters, lovers, mothers, and daughters come together in myriad constellations, often so that one character can make a body-altering choice of extreme proportions. In a variety of forms--from a satirical retelling of Noah's Ark to a sister drama revolving around naked mole rats--There Is Only Us presents a series of escalating scenarios, intimate and yet absurd, that ask, how much can you change and still be you? Ballering's stories bring to speculative fiction a new lightness and absurdity and a commitment to contemporary experiences of loneliness, especially among Millennials: loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic, ecological loneliness (the sense that, by the end of our lives, the earth will be barren), and the unsolvable loneliness that so many experience despite carrying around a tiny device that claims it can connect them to any human anywhere on earth.

Contents:

Ark

&

Substances: A School Year

Mothers

Double or Nothing

Is That Sweet?

Luz Luz

Here I Am

Acknowledgments.

Notes:

"2022 Winner, Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction."

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-57441-886-6