Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen is published by Zando Projects, an independent publisher that "with a select group of beloved public figures, platforms and institutions, publishing a carefully chosen slate of books that reflect those partners’ authentic passions and interests."

First things first- Patricia Wants to Cuddle is not the Bigfoot lesbian love story I thought it was going to be. Just putting that out there in case anyone else goes in expecting a woman and a lady Bigfoot to fall in love. I don't want you to be disappointed.

That said- I really enjoyed this book! The reality TV aspects were funny and messed up, and I thought it did a good job of making the contestants real people who all had their own reasons for being on the show. Casey the producer was likewise interesting, manipulating everyone and trying to get the best TV possible. The mystery aspects of just what is going on on Otters Island were also done well, little tidbits that build until the horror-style ending, which was a lot of fun to read.

The book in general was really fun! I wish we'd had more- more Patricia, more Renee- it's a short book of about 250 pages, and I think even 20 or so extra pages to build the characters into that ending more would have been great. But overall, if you're looking for a weird mystery-horror-reality TV comedy, I do recommend it.

White Magic by Elissa Washuta is published by Tin House Books.

About halfway through White Magic, Elissa Washuta asks the reader in a footnote if she's making them uncomfortable. The answer, in my case, was: yes. White Magic feels incredibly raw, with so much pain, and it's like having a stranger pour out their life story to you. There were times I wanted to look Washuta in the eyes and ask "Why?" about the decisions she made, but she was already doing that to herself. A lot of the book was asking "Why?" and there is never a real answer, which was also uncomfortable. This isn't a collection of essays with a "hurt and healing" narrative, although it does, sort of, end on a less-hurt note.

Washuta's prose is, again, raw, and dense, and her essays do stuff with time and structure that I appreciate more now that I'm thinking back on them. I don't think I have the expertise or the words to describe the technical aspects of White Magic beyond being able to tell it was good, and interesting, and I also think it's even harder for me to think about the technical aspects of the book because reading it felt like being hit with a firehose of someone else's pain and bad choices.

Even writing about the emotional aspect of White Magic feels weird, because it reads as judgy to me, which I'm not trying to be. I will say I went in expecting a different book, one that was more...straightforward, I guess? About magic and Washuta's Native heritage, rather than weaving those aspects into her story so they all fed into each other. I was uncomfortable a lot. She's an excellent writer.

A Door Behind a Door by Yelena Moskovich is published by Two Dollar Radio.

It's been a while since I read a book in one day, let alone a work day, even if the book is under 200 pages. A Door Behind a Door is chopped up into little paragraphs, each with headers, some only a word or two long, and cascading together in a way that is very bite-size and very moreish. It reminded me a tad of In the Dream House in format, but only in format. That helped the quick read, but there was also the way things came together (or didn't, or I thought they might) that gathered speed as I realized there were only so many pages left.

I'm not sure how to describe what A Door Behind a Door is about, because it wasn't what I thought it was but it's also pretty much what the book flap says- it's about a girl named Olga who emigrates to the US from the Soviet Union, and about a man from her past calling her out of nowhere, and about their shared past. It's about love? About grief? About weird supernatural business? It's about how the past is never truly past? All of these things and/or none of them? It starts off fairly linear and then blooms into something more circular and complex.

The prose is lovely, and I can absolutely tell that it will hold up to rereads in the way where you notice something new, or pieces fit together differently, each time. It was just interesting and weird and intense.

Bring Me the Head of Quentin Tarantino: Stories by Julián Herbert and translated by Christina McSweeney is published by Graywolf Press.

I'm in kind of a slump right now but I want to try and write a review for this collection, and also to get around to writing a review of the other small-press short story collection I read a few weeks ago.

Yes, I picked this one up because of the title.

This is a really interesting collection of stories- the back of the book says "Herbert asks: Where are the lines between fiction, memory, and reality? What is the relationship between power, corruption, and survival? How much violence can a person (and a country) take?" and I think those are really good questions for getting at what the stories are like. There stories all have at least one absurd element to them, but in a way that made me think "Oh, yeah, of course."

I was going to say that "White Paper" was the weirdest story, but I think it's actually "Caries," which contains pictures of the inside of someone's mouth and a lot of sheet music. And it was really interesting! The discussion of art and chance was really cool. "There where we stood" was very short and had a wonderful final line. "M.L. Estefanía" really nailed that "absurd but also realistic" feeling, and "Z" was an interestingly banal zombie story. I do not remember "The dog's head" even though I read it yesterday.

And, of course, there is the final and titular story "Bring Me the Head of Quentin Tarantino," which I suspect people who are more familiar with his work than I am would get more out of. I still really liked it! It struck me as a meta-commentary, and it was really well executed. I don't know how connected all the stories are (or can even be), but the final line of the book brought everything full circle and I found it delightful.

Without having read the original work, I think McSweeney did a good job of translating and getting across the heart of the stories. The prose and the ideas of the stories reinforce each other.

Virtuoso by Yelena Moskovich was published by Two Dollar Radio. I bought Virtuoso and Moskovich's A Door Behind a Door as part of TDR's Double Exposure sale.

I finished Virtuoso yesterday and I've been trying to think about how to write about it. One thing I thought while reading it was "it has a bunch of different characters at a bunch of different times in a bunch of different places," which. That's a lot of stories, so not all that helpful or descriptive really. But the structure of the book is interesting and often confusing- there were moments where I thought "Oh, I see now how this fits together," only for a later chapter to reveal something new that made the pieces not fit together after all. I liked the prose- I liked the run on thoughts and choppy divisions and descriptions. It was simultaneously blunt and obtuse at times, which was interesting to read, if a little frustrating at times. Some of the word choices weren't ~my ideal~ but they fit with the story, which is more important.

Virtuoso is about three women, and also two girls in a chatroom, and also a mysterious bar and some weird mysterious children. But mostly it's about the three women, and how they live and grow and the people they meet. Theirs were the parts I understood the most, or at least felt like I understood the most. The chatroom plotline was a weird mystery, and the bar and kids were just weird. I might have to read this again at some point to see if familiarity helps me better understand how they fit into the story. This book also has one of the weirder assault scenes I've read- not really graphic or upsetting, just weird.

Really, I'm not sure how to feel about this book, but it was interesting and made me think, and I'm curious as to what the experience of reading A Door Behind a Door will be like.

Boys, Beasts & Men by Sam J Miller will be published by Tachyon Publications on 14 June 2022. I received an early copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. (Although, fun fact- Tachyon actually reached out to me in January to ask if I wanted to review the book, I just didn't see their email until I'd already requested it on NetGalley. A good reminder to check that email more often, and also very exciting to me!)

Boys, Beasts & Men is a short-story collection, which are always difficult for me to review, because part of me wants to just review the stories individually, but I also know that, as a collection, they're part of a whole, and care was taken to determine what stories would go in, and in what order. This collection was well-chosen, and the title is a perfect summation of what the stories are about.

There's a wonderful triple punch in Boys, Beasts & Men- "Calved," followed by "When Your Child Strays from God," and finally "Things With Beards." The first two stories work well together, both stories of parents learning more about their children and dealing with issues of their own. "Calved" was devastating, both the world it's set in and Thede's father trying to connect with Thede and the consequences of that. "When Your Child Strays from God" was a more hopeful story of parental connection, and had some absolute stunners of sentences in it. Miller says he wrote it right after "Calved," and the two of them are a fascinating conversation (also- I love that there's a section at the end where Miller talks about each of his stories). "Things With Beards" doesn't really have much connection with the first two stories, but it follows them, and the three of them are my favorite in the collection, so. It's a continuance of John Carpenter's The Thing The Movie 1982, and it's about fighting for police reform, and it's about passing, and more- it's a lot of stuff I really like, and I was delighted and intrigued.

I also really enjoyed "Angel, Monster, Man," because I love stories about how symbols mean different things to different people, and myths becoming real, and all that jazz. The collection has a framing device throughout, and the transition from the second to last framing section to the last story to the final framing section was excellent.

My biggest problem with this book is that the starting story, "Allosaurus Burgers," is the one I found the weakest. I read the first three stories, and an hour later couldn't remember anything about "Allosaurus Burgers," which was pretty disappointing, considering it had a dinosaur in it and also was the start of the collection. It definitely didn't ruin the book, but it did color my reading of the rest of it.

Over all, it's a strong collection of stories with themes I'm really into, dark and interesting, and I'm interested in checking out Miller's other works.

Little Sister Death by William Gay was published by Dzanc Books.

I think Little Sister Death is successful in creating a myth and how things build up around it, and the impact local legends can have on the places they're set, and in conveying how a haunting can destroy a family. It does a good job at skipping around time periods, and depicting Binder's obsession and how it takes him away from his family. William Gay's prose is solid, and good at conveying the way people speak without getting too into writing out dialect.

Although the haunting is definitely real, as far as the book shows, there was a lot about it that was incredibly frustrating. I don't need everything to be neatly tied up, but the book introduced a number of threads that weren't even revisited again, or seemed to foreshadow things that would never come back. There was also some gender and race stuff I didn't love, but might have been "older dude author" stuff or might have been part of the story. I love folk tales and folk horror and metafiction, and wanted to enjoy this book, but it fell flat for me. The foreword was more interesting.

We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix is published by Quirk Books, a small publisher of  "entertaining, enlightening, and strikingly unconventional books."

We Sold Our Souls is a fun horror book about making music and making a mark on the world and also everything being commercialized. The word "fun" sounds a bit weird considering it starts with Kris living a life she hates and honestly things get worse from there, but it is! Tonally and pacing-wise, it clips along and doesn't get too bogged down in its own concepts. There are some really good horror scenes- the bit with the tunnel, and the last scene with JD particularly stand out- and there's a lot of love for music in the book. It did occasionally edge into "everything is soulless, mass-marketed, palatable porridge" territory, but it's also a book about a bitter ex-musician who unknowingly wrote a semi-prophetic metal album, so I'm cutting it some slack.

Despite the fun I had with it, I didn't quite click with it in the way I was hoping to, but I do want to see if I can find some metal bands I do click with, so there's that. Also, physically, the book is awesome to look at.

(I also have a review to write but here's the last SPS of the year first!)

Who are they?
In their own words: "Catapult publishes award-winning fiction and nonfiction of the highest literary caliber, offers writing classes taught by acclaimed emerging and established writers, produces an award-winning daily online magazine of narrative nonfiction and fiction, and hosts an open online platform where writers can showcase their own writing, find resources, and get inspired."

Catapult is an independent publisher and literary magazine run by Elizabeth Koch. Catapult books have won a bunch of awards. The books include essay and story collections, anthologies, and translated works, as well as English-language novels and nonfiction books. Catapult has the imprint Black Balloon Books, which does some really interesting format stuff. The company also bought Counterpoint, an independent publisher formed from three smaller publishers (Soft Skull Press, Counterpoint Press, and Shoemaker & Hoard) in 2016. The Catapult website doesn't list Soft Skull as an imprint, but Soft Skull does mention Catapult on its "About" page regarding printing permissions.

Website and Store
When you first see the website, the screen mostly consists of articles/essays/stories for its "digital daily magazine." It also has links to its online classes. Somewhere in the middle of this, once you scroll down some, are links to its new books. The navigation bar at the top is clearly labeled, though, and you can navigate to their catalogue by clicking the "Books" icon fairly easily.

Once you navigate to their catalogue, they have a link to their Spring 2022 catalogue for a preview of upcoming books, and further down their current releases. If you see a title you like and want to buy, there are several large links to buy from other book sellers. It's definitely not my favorite format, but it's not hideous and it is fairly straightforward to navigate. Although they don't appear to actually list all the book they have published?

Have I heard of/read any of their books?
I did read Love is an Ex-Country by Randa Jarrar earlier this year! And I've also heard of Fake Accounts by Lauren Oyler (I see it in my library's new books section a lot, but I have a massive list of books I want to read). I've also heard of Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzu; Brother, Sister, Mother, Explorer by Jamie Figueroa; The Weak Spot by Lucie Elven; and White Tears/Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad.  And I see that there's a memoir by Sofia Samatar, which I didn't know about but now want to read- I love Samatar's writing.

Anything else?
Yep! The CEO's name might sound familiar- that's because she's one of those Kochs.There's an interesting article about it here. I am in favor of independent publishers, and setting up a business like that definitely isn't free, but having that kind of money in publishing is definitely...something.

On Fragile Waves by E. Lily Yu was published by Erewhon Books.

On Fragile Waves is a beautifully written book dealing with a very difficult subject. I think it succeeds, for the most part, at conveying the difficulties and complexities of people seeking asylum from a warzone, in spirit if not actuality (possibly in actuality too! I just can't assess that). Firuzeh and her family go through a lot in pursuit of hope, a dream, safety, and the reality of that dream isn't all they thought it would be. There are cultural differences and racists and the threat of deportation. They've all been scarred by their experiences, and have to deal with that.

I liked a lot of the storytelling element, and Nasirah's appearances, and the few chapters from other characters' perspectives (I didn't like Quentin's chapter but I appreciated it). I thought it worked well, in a book dealing with stories and the refugee experience, to have other characters' stories, especially those who were part of their own diaspora.

For all the lovely writing and the good job it does with the subject matter, it fell a little flat for me. I thought the storytelling-as-coping element would be a larger part of the book, and I would have appreciated more Nasirah. I was also surprised to see that it was categorized as an adult novel- not because the main character is a child; I've read adult novels with child protagonists just fine- but because it seemed juvenile in parts. "Juvenile" sounds derogatory, and I don't mean that, just that it seems like it was written for younger people. I'd guessed that it was a young adult book before I looked it up. Again, not a bad thing, that was just what I thought the intended audience was.

It looks like this is E. Lily Yu's debut novel, so maybe it's just growing pains. I do want to check out her short stories after this.