Harare Review of Books

208 pp. Published April 22, 2025 by FSG Originals. Fiction anthology.

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Any regular reader of my writing will know I love quirk. It’s a particular kind, though: it must be cerebral; odd but not ridiculous or too obvious; and it’s extra nice if it’s something that makes the mundane just that slightest bit weird. This is what Bertino does in these twelve stories, that feature girl ghosts, getting trapped in an alternate timeline (such a great pay-off in this story!), haunted balloons, a blind boy who learns to see but maybe doesn’t need to. It’s all about existential oddness.

It’s this kind of weird, often a bit maudlin (in this case about a budding relationship):
“The boy’s penis had been injured in war and replaced with two orchids that needed different kinds of sunlight. The girl doesn’t want a sexual relationship.”

It’s quirky ideas like this:
“My town’s chief bragging point is: A short drive to everything! But me, I like to walk. Arms akimbo. Toes out.”

Bertino is also very frequently funny. Do you find this unexpectedly funny?
“Sara Rice has cerebral palsy. I assumed because she had a disease she was a nice person, in the way we are all, when confronted by the headlights of death, prioritized. I introduced her to my friends, cooked her a meal from a centuries-old recipe. Sara Rice belittled my interests, hit on my boyfriend, ripped off my front bumper with her bare hands. I asked why she did it. She said she wanted to see if she could.”

Or how about:
““How was Saturn?” James says.
“Great,” I say.
“It was?” He sounds suspicious.
“So great.”
“You’re lying,” he says, trembling. “You didn’t go.”
“I did,” I insist.
“I know you didn’t,” he says. “I gave you the wrong directions.””

If you giggled a bit, then you’re the right kind of reader, and you should pick this up.

Readers of Bertino’s previous novel, Beautyland, will know she has a real way with words, a precision and beauty:
“His bedspread, a halfhearted floral, is perforated by an array of precise divots, as if it has recently been the resting place for a constellation of stars.”

This collection is like a mid-afternoon walk through a series of dreams, a kind of here-and-not-here-ness. Fantastic. She’s my very favourite kind of writer.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for early access.

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