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My Horse and Other Stories
author
Stacey Levine
the shpiel
Stacey Levine’s collection of short stories, My Horse and Other Stories is about as odd as they come. Her stories are razor-sharp otherworldly portraits, claustrophobic domestic studies, and surrealist psychological journeys. Levine is fascinated by the impermeability of experience—particularly our bodies and our impulses—and delves into this fascination in the most bizarre and ultimately fulfilling ways.
In “The Hump” a woman discovers a “flesh-colored hump” on her shoulder that becomes alarmingly consuming, both physically and psychologically. “It might have been possible that the hump jiggled and swayed somewhat less now than it had when it first appeared, a month before; it seemed harder, and being harder, it also seemed smaller.” In another story, “Cakes,” a woman buys several cakes with the intention of eating them and becoming “very full” but is so set off kilter by the arrival of a dog and cat at her window that she is unable to eat the cakes. The animals stay for days, forcing her to postpone her enjoyment and resulting in her becoming “quite ill.”
At their tamest, Levine’s stories are disquieting. Her work is fiercely logical, and lyric down to the last clause. Like a tapeworm, her stories settle in your gut and refuse to be expelled.
what really matters
The way Levine alters your perception of, oh, everything for, oh, ever.
other people who
liked this book (or at least say they
did)
Stephen Beachy
some other things
this author has written
Dra
Francis Johnson
The Girl with Brown Fur
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