Fiction

Beth is at work on her first novel about a boy and a horse living through a war.

“His toy cars are out of gas, creating chaos at the checkpoint, but the plastic horses can still get through.” The New Yorker

A bit about the book:

“Given how concise the story is,” writes Evans, “it would take a citation almost the length of ‘The First Robot’ to properly catalogue its virtues. The story feels grounded in a recognizable world while anchored to the strangeness of its perspective. It explores grief, art, utility, and the meaning of sentience, all while expertly balancing clarity and mystery. Its sentences unfold in a riveting and surprising fashion, and by its conclusion the story opens up to a question about humanity even larger than the questions with which it began. This is the voice of a confident, original writer.” – Danielle Evans, judge of the 2023 Kenyon Review Short Fiction Prize

“Clause to clause, I had no idea where this writer’s hilarious evocation of a depressed horse was taking me. Every micro-fable swerved in a new direction, and there was so much suspense and surprise on the level of the line; I laughed out loud several times, happy to have my expectations blown to smithereens with each new paragraph. GPS: recalculating. There is no autofill of the imagination happening here. Nope, it’s just ‘your basic story of why: why the horse won’t karaoke / why didn’t God laugh?'”– Karen Russell, judge of the 2023 American Short(er) Fiction Prize

“A tender, delicate story with a language and a narrative logic all its own. A story that teaches you to read it. The details are precise but elaborate and (I hesitate to say) almost perfectly arranged. When you reach the final line, you’re not exactly sure what has happened to you, yet immediately you’re compelled to return to the first line and begin again.” – Jamil Jan Kochai, judge of the Z oetrope 2023 Short Fiction Competition