The Age of Discovery and Other Stories

"At its essence, this enjoyable collection explores how nothing is ever exactly as it seems."--Booklist

"These ingenious stories are so funny and sparkling and slyly inventive that their pain catches you by surprise, like a sunburn after a day at the beach."--Eric Puchner

In Becky Hagenston's fourth collection, the real and the fantastic collide in stories that span from Mississippi to Europe, and from the recent past to the near future. The characters are sex-toy sellers, internet trolls, parents, students, and babysitters--all trying to make sense of a world where nothing is quite what it appears to be. A service robot makes increasingly disturbing requests. A middle school teacher is accused of witchcraft--and realizes the accusations might be true. Two college students devise a way to avoid getting hit on in bars. A baker finds bizarre anomalies in his sourdough. A librarian follows her dead ex-husband through the Atlanta airport. In these stories, men and women confront grief, danger, loneliness, and sometimes--the strangest discovery of all--unexpected joy. Hagenston delivers a collection that is, at its weird and shining heart, about people discovering what--for better or worse--they are capable of.

Author: Becky Hagenston
Publisher: Mad Creek Books
Published: 08/11/2021
Pages: 192
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.52lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.40w x 0.40d
ISBN13: 9780814257944
ISBN10: 0814257941
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Short Stories (single author)
- Fiction | Literary
- Fiction | Science Fiction | General

About the Author
Becky Hagenston is Professor of English at Mississippi State University. She is the recipient of two O. Henry Prizes and a Pushcart Prize. In addition to The Age of Discovery and Other Stories, she is the author of the collections A Gram of Mars, Strange Weather, and Scavengers.