Published in 2018
174 pages
Genevieve Hudson is the author of the novel Boys of Alabama, the critical memoir A Little in Love with Everyone, and Pretend We Live Here: Stories, which was a 2019 LAMBDA Literary Award finalist. She has received fellowships from the Fulbright Program, The MacDowell Colony, Caldera Arts, and The Vermont Studio Center. She lives in Portland, OR.
What is this book about?
In her debut collection of stories, Pretend We Live Here, Genevieve Hudson boldly explores the idea of home and what it means to find one: in the body, in the world, in other people. Her characters are seekers, whose actions are influenced by their slippery identities and by the strange landscapes that surround them. In “Boy Box,” a young woman yearns to test her luck with a wild punk girl crush. In “God Hospital,” a character journeys deep into the woods of Alabama in search of an infamous religious healer, hoping he can fix her teeth. In “Adorno,” someone in need of forgiveness crosses paths with a band of radical vegan activists and gets subsumed into their world. In “Dance!,” a recluse writes a breakthrough song for her pink dolphin, but the song’s success only drives her further away from society.
These stories hum with sexual tension, queerness, displacement, longing, humor, and dark nostalgia. With stories set in Amsterdam, the Pacific Northwest, and the Deep South, Hudson’s attention to the nuances and uncertainty of her characters make this collection a stunning debut.
