Assignment Pick

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Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado

An absolutely stunning collection from an author whose work has appeared only in the format of short fiction. The stories in this book are horrible, beautiful, bloody, and sincere. Each story seems to embody the feminine voice with an authenticity that feels unparalleled in much of today’s fiction and thematically addresses the horror of anxieties surrounding body image, fidelity, sculpting oneself into what lovers seem to want or need, violence, desire, and so much more. The pieces do not fit into any particular genre, as far as I can tell. Instead the stories weave between romance, science fiction, magical realism, and postmodern recontextualization.

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I thoroughly enjoyed this book and immediately sent to my friends and relatives links from Granta and other online journals where the stories originally appeared. Each perfectly-executed piece so seemed to speak to me, my humanity, and some aspect of the women I loved, that I wanted to share Machado's brilliance with everyone I knew. Truly a genuine collection of dream-portraits of what it means to exist.

—Garrett Zecker

Student Pick

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The Pugilist at Rest by Thom Jones

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Thom Jones submitted the title story of this collection to The New Yorker’s slush pile when he was working as a janitor, twenty years after he’d graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. At the time, the fiction editor said they were publishing 112 stories a year from the 22,400 submissions, and only one or two would come from unsolicited submissions. When you read the story “The Pugilist at Rest,” you’ll understand why it caught an editor’s attention and how it earned an O Henry Award.

“The Pugilist at Rest” follows a narrator as he graduates from boot camp, deploys to Vietnam three times, and ultimately becomes a boxer and develops epilepsy. The narrator recalls his time in Vietnam, so the reader relives his experiences and sees how his past has broken him physically and spiritually.

Jones’s stories are built around violent acts of love. In “The Pugilist at Rest,” the narrator slams the buttstock of his rifle into a recruit’s head out of loyalty to his friend; Marines will die violently to save their buddies. Jones doesn’t glorify the violence, but rather shows the burden that it has put on his characters.

Stories like “The Pugilist at Rest” and “The Black Lights,” are examples of how short fiction can be perfect. They’re so good that they’ll make you want to work harder because after reading it, you’ll see that the bar got raised a few notches.

— Eddie Dzialo