You Are Having a Good Time: Stories [Paperback]

Named A Best Book of 2016 byWall Street Journal, Vulture,Refinery29,Financial Times,andThe Guardian

InYou Are Having a Good Time, Amie Barrodales collection of highly compressed and charged tales, the veneer of normality is stripped from her characters lives to reveal the seething and contradictory desires that fuel them. In Animals, an up-and-coming starlet harbors a complicated attraction toward her abusive director. In Frank Advice for Fat Women, an ethically compromised psychiatrist is drawn into the middle of a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship. And in The Imp, a supernatural possession ruins a mans relationship with his pregnant wife.

Barrodales protagonists drink too much, say the wrong things, want the wrong people. Theyre hounded by longings (and sometimes ghosts) to the point where they are forced to confront the illusions they cling to. Theyre brought to life in stories that dont behave as you expect stories to behave. Barrodales startlingly funny and original fictions get under your skin and make you reconsider the fragile compromises that underpin our daily lives.

Stark and cutting . . . The book's power comes from Barrodale's ability to distort and project the familiar into something new, like a visual artist playing with shadows cast on a gallery wall. Nicholas Mancusi,The New York Times Book Review

Each of the 10 stories in Barrodales collection is a gem: elegant, subversive, and surprising. Barrodale depicts an impressive breadth of settings and characters. At the heart of each story is a tenuous relationship: in one, an actress explores her attraction to an abusive director; in another, a psychologist navigates a mother-daughter relationship; in a third, a man who eats the same meal every night pursues a mysterious woman. Travel and Leisure

These short tales fromVicefiction editor Amie Barrodale focus on precarious relationships: l3)