Some Possible Solutions

In a spine-tingling new collection, the unique and wickedly funny Helen Phillips offers an idiosyncratic series of "what-ifs" about our fragile human condition What if you knew the exact date of your death? What if your perfect hermaphrodite match existed on another planet? What if your city was filled with doppelgangers of you? In these remarkably inventive stories Helen Phillips' characters search for solutions to the problem of survival in an irrational, infinitely strange world. We meet a wealthy woman who purchases a high-tech sex toy in the shape of a man, a mother convinced that her children are from another planet, and orphaned twin sisters who work as futuristic strippers. As they strive for intimacy and struggle to resolve their fraught relationships with each other, and with themselves, we realise these dystopias are uncannily close to our own world. By turns surreal, witty, and perplexing, these bewitching stories are ultimately a reflection of our own reality and of the biggest existential questions we all face Helen Phillips is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award, the Italo Calvino Prize and more. She is the author of the widely acclaimed novel The Beautiful Bureaucrat, also published by Pushkin Press. Her debut collection And Yet They Were Happy was named a notable book by The Story Prize. Her work has appeared in Tin House, Electric Literature, and The New York Times. An assistant professor of creative writing at Brooklyn College, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and children.

About the Author :
Helen Phillips is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award, the Italo Calvino Prize and more. She is the author of the widely acclaimed novel The Beautiful Bureaucrat, also published by Pushkin Press. Her debut collection And Yet They Were Happy was named a notable book by The Story Prize. Her work has appeared in Tin House, Electric Literature, and The New York Times. An assistant professor of creative writing at Brooklyn College, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and children.

Review :
This stunning collection establishes Helen Philips as one of the most interesting and talented writers working today. In atmosphere and setting, her stories are often reminiscent of Kafka and Atwood, yet her voice and style are entirely her own. A fascinating, unsettling, and beautifully written work I love Helen Phillips's wild, brilliant, eccentric brain. Her vision flashes down like a lightning bolt into everyday terrors - but in a way so wonderfully awry that every single story has a freshness to it that comes as a shock to the reader's system Darkly funny... echoes of Margaret Atwood and Shirley Jackson... but in the end her voice is her own; a kind of wryly optimistic and apocalyptically witty warmth that makes even her most outlandish imaginings feel, well, possible Phillips brings a domestic matter-of-factness to these almost science-fictional scenarios... her stories bounce defamiliarising insights back into the real world She uses the opportunities afforded by speculative fiction to articulate emotional states that generally go unspoken... the hit-rate here is impressively high I would definitely be open to reading Ms Phillips again and again Unsettling... quirky... strong flavours of surrealism Comparisons to Margaret Atwood and Karen Russell would not be unjust, nor would they be helpful; Phillips is carving her own, messier territory. As beautifully as she embraces and executes the fantastical, she's even better when the surreal remains a mere lurking possibility Phillips plays out for us what might happen if the impossible were possible . . . She is a master at building slightly askew worlds that resemble our own but allow for the inexplicable, the astonishing, the surreal. Helen Phillips sings like a Siren on the page (if a Siren also had a killer sense of humor) . . . these tales are true originals, shining their eerie, lovely lights on the water and asking questions that linger Phillips holds a mirror up to society, pushing us to think critically about the idiosyncrasies of modern life . . . Like Margaret Atwood and Lorrie Moore, she has a knack for combining the strange, the speculative, and the mundane into an unpredictable array of stories. Like our best thinkers and futurists, she has the audacity to extrapolate the perhaps-possible, to explore potential answers to some of our deepest, unspoken questions Things happen that cannot happen. Marriages, motherhood, dinner parties, the future - Helen Phillips shows us the uncanny seams of ordinary lives and wishes. I recommend the experience to any and all - this is an essential collection Captivating... Some Possible Solutions is a dark read filled with people in pain and lives upended by the most unpredictable of circumstances. But it's also tremendously hopeful The short stories in this darkly absorbing collection remind us of the hope and humanity, the warmth, joy, and love that can be found in even the bleakest circumstances... Phillips proves yet again that she is an intuitive, emotionally resonant writer who is willing to consider some of life's biggest questions and offer, yes, a few possible solutions A surreal, disturbing assemblage of worlds, each complete and somehow totally convincing despite their strangeness ... a delight - there is joy in its darkness, and pleasure in its exuberant imagination