A searing portrait of a man at the end of an empire. As his country crumbles, Artie Dam finds himself adrift. Revelations about family and friends make him realise that he's really not sure who he or anyone else is anymore. His preoccupation with free will and the recurrence of history weigh down his life, and the further he becomes alienated from the world, the further he resigns himself to predestination. Strout's prose is an exemplary balancing act of humanisation. She is tender but barbarous, full of feeling but unsentimental. You love her characters in spite of their sharply defined flaws, and often because of those flaws. I rarely weep at the end of a novel, but the epilogue had me in pieces.

A sharp and delightfully weird collection of stories. Gibson delights in off-kilter scenarios, from vengeful animal psychics to romances sparked by child suicide. Her prose is absolutely crystalline. There is never a word wasted, never a word out of place. Though various themes recur, the most prevalent throughout the collection is that of perception. She derives thematic punchlines through misunderstandings, dramatic ironies, and the plain ignorance of her (male) characters. We all have one good eye, but it seems we more often see the world with our bad one.

My only issue really is due to their short length (10~ pages each), the stories do often feel more like vividly drawn character vignettes. I can admit my own bias here, as I much prefer longer short stories. If there were say six more substantial pieces here instead of twelve slim ones, I'd probably be giving this five stars. This is her debut book, but she's working on some novels, and I'm very excited to follow her work!

Story Summaries below (beware spoilers!) / / /

1. Pest Control - Rats invading, women calls upon animal psychic... little does woman know she stole animal psychic's older sham-psychic boyfriend from her a long time ago. Animal psychic makes rats worse... possible murderous?
2. Linear A - Woman on cruise in Greece, steals talismanic stone that awakens her to the fact her terrible boyfriend is terrible.
3. Cushion Cut - Old man is arbitrarily shot dead, an old woman waits for him to come to her. He will never come.
4. Intake - At home nurse watches over former chef who is mute. At home nurse gets it into her mind to recreate dishes from the chef's recipe books, despite chef on strict liquid diet. Eventually, Chef is fed a feast that kills her. Better to go out in a blaze than eke out an existence on baby food? Perhaps.
5. The Good Eye - Woman invited to catalogue private art collection. Collection includes forgeries, sold to her by her current romantic partner. Couple seems to invite narrator into some kind of tryst, she does not pick up on it. Narrator does not disclose the forgeries in report. Eventually, estate is up for sale, it is never clarified what happened to the couple (Break up? Young swindler offing the old lady for inheritance? Who knows.)
6. Wild Food - Piggish artist man belittles his 'normie' girlfriend. She cooks dinner for him and his friends, with some special mushrooms added to his dish.
7. Our Lady of the Midnight - Music teacher moves to small town in the hopes of experiencing religious ecstasy. Ostracises one of her students who recently moved to the town, including physical abuse. Music teacher mistakes student for religious vision, student knowingly feeds into her delusion.
8. Clairvoyance - Historical(?) setting. Husband takes wife to mountain resort, wife becomes attached to a former childhood friend and they form some sort of spiritualist cult. Husband is left aside while wife seemingly embarks on lesbian affairs.
9. Flip - Young man with a talent for magic card tricks meets a girl who is unable to lose at anything.
10. The Hunt - Husband attends step-fathers hunting trip. Wife decides to also come on the hunt. He has been having an affair. She seems to know. References to Catherine de Medici and Diane de Poitier.
11. Light Tricks - Girl dressed as an angel throws herself in front of a train, becomes a real angel and guides together two people aboard to meet each other and form a relationship.
12. Blue Circle - Artist sleeps with art critic to get her husband's work recognised. Artist's own worked is ignored. Years later after her husband dies, PhD student comes inquiring about a series erroneously attributed to the husband in a letter, the critic was speaking of her work not her husbands.