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The Ill-Fitting Skin

The Ill-Fitting Skin

Winner of the Press 53 Award for Short Fiction

The Ill-Fitting Skin is layered with surreal story telling but remains an extraordinarily realistic read, in the sense that even the most solid realities of life—and death—tend to blur and shimmer at their raw edges. The talkative bird that nests in a woman’s womb is as real as the “previous tenant.” The love of a mother for her uncontrollable son is as real as the wildness that is in her too. The women of The Ill-Fitting Skin are real women—who work and grieve and create and destroy, who love and do not love, whether at the roll of the dice or because “the pages are paths, and you will have to choose among them.”

The stories in The Ill-Fitting Skin are funny, unflinching, and strange. The mundane and the magical rub together until they’re transformed into pearls in Shannon Robinson’s sharp and lucid prose. Mordant and morbid, these stories will stay with you and take up residence in a dark chamber of your heart.

—Katya Apekina, author of The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish and Mother Doll

Clever, harrowing, bitingly funny, imaginative, absurd, anatomical, and wise, these stories expertly shift from the magical realms of werewolves and zombies to the stark realities of trying to claw out a semblance of existence one can live with. Robinson’s inventive tales are sure to delight admirers of Kelly Link and Aimee Bender.

—Melinda Moustakis, author of Homestead and Bear Down, Bear North: Alaska Stories

Very highly recommended, especially for fans of fantasy, the macabre, or D&D (which is represented here too, in “You Are Now in a Dark Chamber.”)

—Tim Bazzett, author of Booklover, a memoir