Startling stories center the bodies, memories, myths, and relationships of Asian American women in âa voracious, probing collection, proof of how exhilarating the short story can beâ (The New York Times Book Review, Editorsâ Choice)âfrom the National Book Award â5 Under 35â honoree and author of Bestiary
âWise, energetic, funny, and wild, Gods of Want displays a boundless imagination anchored by the weight of ancestors and history.ââKali Fajardo-Anstine, author of Sabrina & Corina and Woman of Light
WINNER OF THE LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD âĸ ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Them, Book Riot
In âAuntland,â a steady stream of aunts adjust to American life by sneaking surreptitious kisses from women at temple, buying tubs of vanilla ice cream to prepare for citizenship tests, and hatching plans to name their daughters âDog.â In âThe Chorus of Dead Cousins,â ghost-cousins cross space, seas, and skies to haunt their live-cousin, wife to a storm chaser. In âXÃfÚ,â a mother-in-law tortures a wife in increasingly unsuccessful attempts to rid the house of her. In âMariela,â two girls explore one anotherâs bodies for the first time in the belly of a plastic shark, while in âVirginia Slims,â a woman from a cigarette ad comes to life. And in âResident Aliens,â a former slaughterhouse serves as a residence to a series of widows, each harboring her own calamitous secrets.Â
With each tale, K-Ming Chang gives us her own take on a surrealism that mixes myth and migration, corporeality and ghostliness, queerness and the quotidian. Stunningly told in her feminist fabulist style, these are uncanny stories peeling back greater questions of power and memory.