Eleven women confront dramas both everyday and outlandish in Caitlin Horrocks’ This Is Not Your City. In stories as darkly comic as they are unflinching, people isolated by geography, emotion, or circumstance cut imperfect paths to peace—they have no other choice. A Russian mail-order bride in Finland is rendered silent by her dislocation and loss of language, the mother of a severely disabled boy writes him postcards he’ll never read on a cruise ship held hostage by pirates, and an Iowa actuary wanders among the reincarnations of those she’s known in her 127 lives. Horrocks’ women find no simple escapes, and their acts of faith and acts of imagination in making do are as shrewd as they are surprising. Now available as an audiobook from Scribd, narrated by Lindsey Dorcus A Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. A starred review in Publisher’s Weekly. A pre-publication pick from Library Journal. More great reviews from The New York Times Book Review, The San Francisco Chronicle, Library Journal, Shelf Awareness, ForeWord, HTMLGIANT, the Star Tribune, Miami Herald, Boston Globe, Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Grand Rapids Press, The Rumpus, the Journal, The New Republic, The Lit Pub, Louisville.com, Book Slut, The Kenyon Review, and The Short Review. Available from Sarabande Books / IndieBound / Barnes & Noble / Amazon A Reader’s Guide is available here. |
“Caitlin Horrocks is that literary phenomenon, a master storyteller. In each of these eleven short fictions, she lends confident style, mature perspective and myriad voices to people in situations and circumstances we might otherwise turn from or never know of. This Is Not Your City is smart, entertaining and emotionally mesmerizing—a superb, daredevil immersion steeped in grace.”
—Melissa Pritchard, author of Disappearing Ingenue and Late Bloomer
“The world of This Is Not Your City is a place of graceful extremes. Ravenous for love, for connection, for family, characters race into one another’s arms, only to find more sorrow and more joy than they had imagined possible. Humor and grief braid tightly through these searching stories, and Caitlin Horrocks’ vision is always lovely, often wrenching, and always surprising.”
—Erin McGraw, author of The Good Life and Lies of the Saints
“This is Not Your City is a spooky, lovely book by an almost unbelievably versatile, self-assured, and talented young writer. Caitlin Horrocks is a writer to remember; This is Not Your City is a book impossible to forget.”
—Brock Clarke, author of Exley and An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England
“Caitlin Horrocks is a magician. Her stories are minor miracles, wicked and tender. This Is Not Your City is a command performance, by turns hilarious, spectacular, tragic, and true. [She’s great. You’ll be moved.] Buy this book and let her show you what she can do.”
—Ander Monson, author of Vanishing Point and Other Electricities
