Published in 2008
250 pages
Elizabeth Crane is the author of two novels We Only Know So Much and The History of Great Things and four collections of short stories: When the Messenger Is Hot and All This Heavenly Glory and You Must Be This Happy to Enter, and Turf. Her work has been adapted for the stage by Steppenwolf Theater and featured on NPR’s Selected Shorts. She is a winner of the Chicago Public Library 21st Century Award.
What is this book about?
“Crane seems to be carving out a younger, brassier, less dystopic territory to complement the fiction of George Saunders and David Foster Wallace.” —The Quarterly Conversation
In her third short story collection, following When the Messenger is Hot and All This Heavenly Glory, Elizabeth Crane presents a quirky cast of characters all searching for, showing off, or seriously questioning what makes them happy. There’s a woman who speaks in all exclamation points, one enamored by her boyfriend’s closet, a zombie reality TV star, a mother whose baby turns into Ethan Hawke, and a woman whose moods are printed on her forehead.
Whether breathlessly enthusiastic, serenely calm, or really concentrating right now on their issues, Elizabeth Crane’s characters shine a spotlight on our spirituality-starved, self-improvement-seeking, celebrity-obsessed culture.
“In her third collection of inventive short stories, Crane continues to ingeniously satirize our muddled quest for meaning in all the wrong places.” —Booklist
“A well-crafted collection of short stories, one whose clarity of tone and theme unites each and every piece into a cohesive whole. At a time when it seems almost antediluvian to be optimistic, Crane’s sincerity stands as a bewitching reminder that there is more to literature than tragedy.” —Bookslut
“Zombies, time travelers, reality TV contestants and even a few normalish folks populate the pages of Elizabeth Crane’s quirky, charming new collection.” —PopMatters
