From Philip K. Dick Award finalist Elwin Cotman, an irresistibly unnerving collection of stories that explore the anxieties of living while Black—a high-wire act of literary-fantastical hybrid fiction.
A rural town finds itself under the authoritarian sway of a tree that punishes children. A pair of old friends navigate their fraught history as strange happenings escalate in a Mexican restaurant. A pair of narcissistic friends wreak havoc on an activist community. An aloof young man finds himself living through his lover’s memories. And a day of LARPing takes a cosmic turn.
In each of the seven stories in this collection, characters pursue their obsessions on paths to glory and destruction while around them their worlds twist and warp, oscillating between reality and impossibility. On display throughout is Cotman’s ability to reveal truths about the human experience—about friendship, love, betrayal, bitterness—through whimsy, horror, and fantasy. Elegiac in tone, imaginative and humorous in their execution, the character-driven stories in Weird Black Girls challenge, incite, and entertain.
Genre: Science Fiction
A rural town finds itself under the authoritarian sway of a tree that punishes children. A pair of old friends navigate their fraught history as strange happenings escalate in a Mexican restaurant. A pair of narcissistic friends wreak havoc on an activist community. An aloof young man finds himself living through his lover’s memories. And a day of LARPing takes a cosmic turn.
In each of the seven stories in this collection, characters pursue their obsessions on paths to glory and destruction while around them their worlds twist and warp, oscillating between reality and impossibility. On display throughout is Cotman’s ability to reveal truths about the human experience—about friendship, love, betrayal, bitterness—through whimsy, horror, and fantasy. Elegiac in tone, imaginative and humorous in their execution, the character-driven stories in Weird Black Girls challenge, incite, and entertain.
Genre: Science Fiction
Praise for this book
"Homeboy can write. There's absolutely no doubt about that. And not afraid to nerd out either. With Weird Black Girls, Cotman stellarly bursts open the thread of Black space in fiction. A landmark collection!" - Sidik Fofana
"Elwin Cotman is a brilliant writer, full stop, and Weird Black Girls is his best book yet. Essential reading." - Elizabeth Hand
"Elwin Cotman's fiction is genius. Weird Black Girls is full of wry, fantastical twists that are always surprising, always illuminating. I'm enraptured by his writing, his every paragraph rich in wisdom and wit, his stories somehow rough and refined both, a brilliant mix of perversity and common sense, of the sacred and the profane." - Timothy Schaffert
"Elwin Cotman is a brilliant writer, full stop, and Weird Black Girls is his best book yet. Essential reading." - Elizabeth Hand
"Elwin Cotman's fiction is genius. Weird Black Girls is full of wry, fantastical twists that are always surprising, always illuminating. I'm enraptured by his writing, his every paragraph rich in wisdom and wit, his stories somehow rough and refined both, a brilliant mix of perversity and common sense, of the sacred and the profane." - Timothy Schaffert
Visitors also looked at these books
Used availability for Elwin Cotman's Weird Black Girls