Wendy Wimmer
Short story collection
Autumn House Press, August 24, 2022
190 pp
$12.49 ebook
$17.95 paper
Buy on Amazon
Barnes and Noble
About the Book
Tales of characters trying to find their way through the struggles of underemployment.
Wendy Wimmer’s debut short story collection, Entry Level, contains a range of characters who are trying to find, assert, or salvage their identities. These fifteen stories center around the experience of being underemployed—whether by circumstance, class, gender, race, or other prevailing factors—and the toll this takes on an individual. Wimmer pushes the boundaries of reality, creating stories that are funny, fantastic, and at times terrifying. Her characters undergo feats of endurance, heartbreak, and loneliness, all while trying to succeed in a world that so often undervalues them. From a young marine biologist suffering from imposter syndrome and a haunting to a bingo caller facing another brutal snowstorm and a creature that may or not be an angel, Wimmer’s characters are all confronting an oppressive universe that seemingly operates against them or is, at best, indifferent to them. These stories reflect on the difficulties of modern-day survival and remind us that piecing together a life demands both hope and resilience.
Entry Level was selected by Deesha Philyaw as the winner of the 2021 Autumn House Fiction Prize.
My Review
Many of these quirky and poignant tales were published in other venues before being collected into one powerful volume. How do we push ourselves out of a rut, out of our circumstances, out of our dreams and into reality…for that matter, what is reality? Wimmer works magic with language and character, posing thought-provoking what-ifs: what if we could get a do-over by going back in time? What if there was a magic pill that took control of the consequences of our choices? My favorite explores the origination of dreams in “Where She Went.”
The stories are told from different personas with different needs and wishes, different perspectives, but all wanting something elusive, and maybe unattainable. Wimmer easily into different genres, ages, life circumstances, telling ghost stories from a scientist’s point of view, life as a conjoined twin, a little girl, a bereaved widower. Each of the fifteen stories will speak to someone.
About the Author
Wendy Wimmer is a writer living in Wisconsin. Her work has been published in Barrelhouse, Waxwing, Paper Darts, Believer, ANMLY, Per Contra, Blackbird, and others. She holds a PhD in English Literature with a Creative Dissertation from the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, and a Master of Arts in English Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.
No comments:
Post a Comment