This Tenuous Atmosphere is a linked series of surreal, speculative fictions. This innovative and lyrical narrative follows Asia, a Korean girl who becomes a hybrid spacecraft and goes to live among the ghost men and their culture of destructive capitalism in space. In this story of adoption, identity, and belonging, Asia never forgets her longing to return home and find her mother, but she is torn between loyalty to her port of origin and a desire to explore deep space.
Review :
"In Maria S. Picone's This Tenuous Atmosphere, the costs of adoption and xenophobia collide in a space opera about finding family and the parts of yourself hidden by circumstance. Inventive and heartfelt, Picone's prose could teach empathy to robots. Enter the narrator's ship and emerge changed." Chelsea Stickle, author of Everything's Changing
"Finally I have had the experience of reading a book that feels like it was written just for me . . . This is a book, especially for Korean adoptees, that will hold you in its/your liminal space, that will speak to you in a language that makes it possible to speak the adopted self." Matthew Salesses, author of The Sense of Wonder
"In the awe-inspiring and genre-defying This Tenuous Atmosphere, Maria S. Picone deftly fashions connected narratives of identity, capitalism, family, fear, anxiety, love. Unapologetic and subversive, Picone jettisons your preconceptions, allowing the gravity of her words to pull you down, where you will be left emptied, and ultimately, refueled." Melissa Llanes Brownlee, author of Hard Skin
"In This Tenuous Atmosphere, Maria Picone has created a powerful, poetic fable of being other, of the unspoken why don't you look like us, of capitalism and bureaucracy, of longing for place and family. With her singular voice, Picone invites the reader to worlds both known and unknown, and takes us somewhere that might be home." Cathy Ulrich, author of Small Burning Things
" . . . This Tenuous Atmosphere propels the reader into a spatiality that embraces both belongingness and unbelonging. Throughout the book, Maria S. Picone etches an acute sadness originating from separation from mother and family, and a profound longing to reunite." Mandira Pattnaik, author of Where We Set Our Easel
"The brilliance and beauty throughout This Tenuous Atmosphere shines from one story to another, a fresh format awaiting at every page. Maria Picone's mastery of boundless imagination, strange yet fulfilling, makes this chapbook an unforgettable read. Be it the escape velocity or orbiting the home with a longing to return, this fine work captures the essence of immigrant life in utmost precision. Picone's words glitter and pulse with originality, so sure of their strength, I found myself captivated. This Tenuous Atmosphere is a true joy and force not to be missed." Tara Isabel Zambrano, author of Death, Desire, and Other Destinations
"Ghosts drift throughout this chapbook at a haunting, nostalgic, and cyclic beat. Each piece is a poetic dance. A kind of astrophysical orbit far from reach, and yet also grounded in concrete, gut-puncturing moments. You travel from Seoul subways to night skies to lunar landings, each location encapsulating different sides of one emotional truth. It feels as though gravity pulls you through the collection of pieces-narratives of home and family and heritage, some staggered and some propulsive-until you've found your conclusive whole." Lucy Zhang, author of Hollowed
" . . . This Tenuous Atmosphere is a tale of longing for home and family, of otherness and fitting in, of assuming new and forced identities, of being confined to check boxes, then fleeing to find one's roots, and upon finding them, starting once again in pursuit of individuality and purpose . . . This chapbook is unforgettable and inimitable; it leaves a multi-blended and distinct flavor like kimchi on your tongue." Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar, author of Skin Over Milk
