Available April 5, 2022 from Random House.
Link to pre-order: http://bit.ly/3nfUV9f
A thrilling new voice in fiction injects the absurd into the everyday to present a startling vision of modern life.
With a focus on the weird and eerie forces that lurk beneath the surface of ordinary experience, Kate Folk’s debut collection is perfectly pitched to the madness of our current moment. A medical ward for a mysterious bone-melting disorder is the setting of a perilous love triangle. A curtain of void obliterates the globe at a steady pace, forcing Earth’s remaining inhabitants to decide with whom they want to spend eternity. A man fleeing personal scandal enters a codependent relationship with a house that requires a particularly demanding level of care. And in the title story, originally published in The New Yorker, a woman in San Francisco uses dating apps to find a partner despite the threat posed by “blots,” preternaturally handsome artificial men dispatched by Russian hackers to steal data. Meanwhile, in a poignant companion piece, a woman and a blot forge a genuine, albeit doomed, connection.
Prescient and wildly imaginative, Out There depicts an uncanny landscape that holds a mirror to our subconscious fears and desires. Each story beats with its own fierce heart, and together they herald an exciting new arrival in the tradition of speculative literary fiction.
ADVANCE PRAISE
“One could fancy Kate Folk as the literary love child of Kafka and Camus and Bradbury, if Kafka and Camus and Bradbury were penning episodes of Black Mirror, but that still wouldn’t capture the blazing originality and exhilarating weirdness of her writing. From the moment you read these wondrously perverse, often creepy and hilarious, and always sneakily heartbreaking tales, you’ll know you’re in the presence of a singularly brilliant vision, one that burns off the scrim of our normal-seeming human customs and operations to reveal the utter bizarreness of this existence. Out There, it turns out, lies very much within.”—Chang-Rae Lee, author of My Year Abroad
“Kate Folk’s stories inhabit otherworldly realms where exquisite language and beguiling characters excavate the very nature of love and existence.”—Adam Johnson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Orphan Master’s Son
“An assortment of stories so sharp and ingenious you may cut yourself on them while reading, like a drawer full of the most beautiful knives—Kate Folk’s Out There goes onto my shelf of favorite collections.”—Kelly Link, author of Get In Trouble
“Kate Folk is a refreshing new voice, utterly original and deliciously twisted.”—Anna Bailey, author of Where the Truth Lies
“Kate Folk is a formidable writer, a literary swordsmith of feline dexterity, very dark and very funny, equally at home in the magisterial darkness and the relentless glare of truth.”—Lisa Locascio, author of Open Me
“Disturbing, alluring, dazzling, and creepy, Out There is a riveting collection that keeps you enthralled with every page.”—Claire North, author of Notes from the Burning Age
“The stories in this stunning debut are funny, fearless, and moving portraits of life shaped by the ever-widening shadow of technological progress. Kate Folk’s imagination is uncanny and arresting. Out There expertly captures the all-too-human experience of longing for lives we may never inhabit, and the final story is a chilling and tender portrait of love that will stick with you long after you finish the book.”—Alex McElroy, author of The Atmospherians
Link to pre-order: http://bit.ly/3nfUV9f
A thrilling new voice in fiction injects the absurd into the everyday to present a startling vision of modern life.
With a focus on the weird and eerie forces that lurk beneath the surface of ordinary experience, Kate Folk’s debut collection is perfectly pitched to the madness of our current moment. A medical ward for a mysterious bone-melting disorder is the setting of a perilous love triangle. A curtain of void obliterates the globe at a steady pace, forcing Earth’s remaining inhabitants to decide with whom they want to spend eternity. A man fleeing personal scandal enters a codependent relationship with a house that requires a particularly demanding level of care. And in the title story, originally published in The New Yorker, a woman in San Francisco uses dating apps to find a partner despite the threat posed by “blots,” preternaturally handsome artificial men dispatched by Russian hackers to steal data. Meanwhile, in a poignant companion piece, a woman and a blot forge a genuine, albeit doomed, connection.
Prescient and wildly imaginative, Out There depicts an uncanny landscape that holds a mirror to our subconscious fears and desires. Each story beats with its own fierce heart, and together they herald an exciting new arrival in the tradition of speculative literary fiction.
ADVANCE PRAISE
“One could fancy Kate Folk as the literary love child of Kafka and Camus and Bradbury, if Kafka and Camus and Bradbury were penning episodes of Black Mirror, but that still wouldn’t capture the blazing originality and exhilarating weirdness of her writing. From the moment you read these wondrously perverse, often creepy and hilarious, and always sneakily heartbreaking tales, you’ll know you’re in the presence of a singularly brilliant vision, one that burns off the scrim of our normal-seeming human customs and operations to reveal the utter bizarreness of this existence. Out There, it turns out, lies very much within.”—Chang-Rae Lee, author of My Year Abroad
“Kate Folk’s stories inhabit otherworldly realms where exquisite language and beguiling characters excavate the very nature of love and existence.”—Adam Johnson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Orphan Master’s Son
“An assortment of stories so sharp and ingenious you may cut yourself on them while reading, like a drawer full of the most beautiful knives—Kate Folk’s Out There goes onto my shelf of favorite collections.”—Kelly Link, author of Get In Trouble
“Kate Folk is a refreshing new voice, utterly original and deliciously twisted.”—Anna Bailey, author of Where the Truth Lies
“Kate Folk is a formidable writer, a literary swordsmith of feline dexterity, very dark and very funny, equally at home in the magisterial darkness and the relentless glare of truth.”—Lisa Locascio, author of Open Me
“Disturbing, alluring, dazzling, and creepy, Out There is a riveting collection that keeps you enthralled with every page.”—Claire North, author of Notes from the Burning Age
“The stories in this stunning debut are funny, fearless, and moving portraits of life shaped by the ever-widening shadow of technological progress. Kate Folk’s imagination is uncanny and arresting. Out There expertly captures the all-too-human experience of longing for lives we may never inhabit, and the final story is a chilling and tender portrait of love that will stick with you long after you finish the book.”—Alex McElroy, author of The Atmospherians