Out There

Reviews / Votes

Out There is for readers who consider body horror to be a love language. True romantics will swoon either despite or because of the gore that accompanies these sharp, affable stories . . . Folk's stories have been compared to Shirley Jackson's, and this is most apparent in the way Folk balances her horror with humour. * New York Times Book Review * Kate Folk's short stories are wonderfully weird; playfully pushing the possibilities of plotlines towards the uncanny, creepy and off-kilter, they have a seam of dark humour that illuminates the grotesquery with an unnerving beauty * Daily Mail * A wonderful absurdist collection that explores the vagaries of human connections * Publishers Weekly (starred review) * Tightly constructed and spectacularly mind-bending stories that ingeniously pair everyday challenges and outlandish predicaments, ranging from hilarious to terrifying. Folk writes with unnerving matter-of-factness as she veers into Poe- and Shirley Jackson-like horror or turns to the poignantly fantastic in the mode of George Saunders or Kelly Link. * Booklist (starred review) * Kate Folk will be compared to Carmen Maria Machado and Julia Armfield - there are wonderful similarities in the sheer force of her creations, but she's very much her own writer. These stories are funny, scalding and, sometimes, breathtakingly beautiful. -- Sarah Davis-Goff, author of <i>Last Ones Left Alive</i> Explores a gendered territory somewhere in the borderlands of magical realism, weird horror, sci-fi and literary fiction about jaded relationships * Los Angeles Times * Fifteen extraordinary, through-the-looking-glass tales, containing locked rooms, demanding houses, embodied Russian bots, revolution, and relationships -- all delivered with a side of menace. Wonderfully weird and weirdly wonderful, Folk is a dazzling talent -- Karen Joy Fowler, bestselling author of <i>We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves</i> Wondrously perverse, often creepy and hilarious, and always sneakily heart-breaking, from the moment you read these 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, award-winning author of <i>The Surrendered</i> Disturbing, alluring, dazzling and creepy, Out There is a riveting collection that keeps you enthralled with every page. -- Claire North, bestselling author of <i>The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August</i> 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 <i>The Orphan Master's Son</i> Kate Folk is a formidable writer, a literary swordsmith of feline dexterity, very dark and very funny, equally at home in the magisterial dark and the relentless glare of truth. -- Lisa Locascio, author of <i>Open Me</i> The stories in this stunning debut are funny, fearless, and moving portraits of life shaped by the ever-widening shadow of technological progress. 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. -- Isle McElroy, author of <i>The Atmospherians</i> The lucid, unsettling landscapes in Out There bring our own world into chilly focus through an exquisitely distorted lens. Each one of these amazing stories is a masterclass in eeriness and perception. Kate Folk's imagination is on fire. -- Ayseguel Savas, author of <i>White on White</i> 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 <i>Get In Trouble</i> Wry, riveting, and ambitious, Out There is one of those rare collections that manages to be both brilliantly inventive and emotionally resonant. Folk's tilted worlds are hilarious and unsettling-they sit squarely in the spaces where anxiety and exhilaration collide. Full of unforgettable voices and gleeful, exacting prose, this is a sharp and stylish debut from a wildly gifted writer -- Kimberly King Parsons, author of <i>Black Light</i>