Karen Russell, “The Bad Graft” (2014)

One of Russell’s most poignant, stunning stories to date, “The Bad Graft” tells the tale of a young couple -- her, twenty-six and looking for a place to land, him, twenty-two and looking for somewhere to go -- as they escape to California a week after meeting each other. After satirically pricking her finger on a Joshua tree, the woman experiences what the omniscient narrator calls a “bad graft”; the “Leap” of one organism’s soul into another’s body. As the girl wrestles with migraines and intense urges to lay in the parking lot under the beating California heat, her boyfriend dopely waits for something to happen. A multifaceted interpretation of queer theory, ecoimperialism, misogyny, and just about any other literary phenomenon an author can grapple with, Russell employs shockingly visceral imagery, thrilling prose, and a masterful extended metaphor that will leave any reader breathless. 

Lauren Groff, “Snake Stories” (2018)

In Groff’s haunting story, a first-person narrator stunningly details her relationship with men, snakes, and sin in a visceral but accessible stream-of-consciousness style narration. Her seemingly random thoughts comprehensively drift from instance to instance, memory to memory, all ultimately wrapping themselves together into heart/mind/gut-punch of an ending. Groff’s evocative, masterful use of syntax and diction contribute to a desensitized and objective tone, while simultaneously building a mood of paranoia and self-doubt. With striking imagery, unforgettable language, and terrifyingly astute insights, Groff builds an unforgettable story with strong feminist undertones. 

Karen Russell, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (2006)

In Russell’s debut title story, a young half-werewolf-half-girl, Claudette, tells the story of her transition from wolf to human life and culture at a half-home for girls raised by wolves. Divided into five distinct parts, Claudette’s physically and emotionally grueling transition parallels five steps from “The Jesuit Handbook on Lycanthropic Culture Shock,” a step-by-step guide to helping (forcing?) young werewolves to adapt to human culture. As is so common but never boring in Russell’s works, the magical-realism and childlike-tone masterfully construct a semi-allegorical tale of culture shock, and all the pain and moral-confusion that comes with it. Though some oddly-placed humor may hinder the reader’s connection with the text, the morally ambiguous and bizarrely relatable tale provides astute insights into classism, racism, and cultural elitism.