Get in Trouble

Starred review from September 15, 2014
These nine stories may begin in familiar territoryâa birthday party, a theme park, a bar, a spaceshipâbut they quickly draw readers into an imaginative, disturbingly ominous world of realistic fantasy and unreal reality. Like Kafka hosting
Saturday Night Live, Link mixes humor with existential dread. The first story, entitled "The Summer People," in homage to Shirley Jackson, follows an Appalachian schoolgirl, abandoned by her moonshiner father, as she looks after a summer house occupied by mysterious beings. "I Can See Right Through You" features friends who, in their youth, were movie stars; now in middle age, she is the hostess and he is the guest star of a television show about hunting ghosts at a Florida nudist colony. "Origin Story" takes place in a deserted Land of Oz theme park; "Secret Identity" is set at a hotel where dentists and superheroes attend simultaneous conferences. Only in a Link story would you encounter Mann Man, a superhero with the powers of Thomas Mann, or visit a world with pools overrun by Disney mermaids. Detailsâa bruise-green sky, a Beretta dotted with Hello Kitty stickersâbring the unimaginable to unnerving life. Each carefully crafted tale forms its own pocket universe, at once ordinary (a teenage girl adores and resents her BFF) and bizarre (...therefore she tries to steal the BFF's robot vampire boyfriend doll). Link's characters, driven by yearning and obsession, not only get in trouble but seek trouble outâto spectacular effect.

Starred review from December 15, 2014
In stories as haunting as anything the Grimm brothers could have come up with, Link (Magic for Beginners, 2005, etc.) gooses the mundane with meaning and enchantment borrowed from myth, urban legend and genre fiction. Here are superheroes who, like minor characters from reality shows, attend conferences at the same hotels as dentists and hold auditions for sidekicks. Here, a Ouija board can tell you as much about your future as your guidance counselor. In "Two Houses," six astronauts wake from suspended animation to while away the time telling ghost stories, although they may be ghosts themselves. In "I Can See Right Through You," an actor past his prime, famous for his role as a vampire, yearns for the leading lady who has replaced him with a parade of eternally younger versions of what he once was-but who is the real demon lover? In "The New Boyfriend," a teenager discontent with her living boyfriend toys with stealing her best friend's birthday present, a limited edition Ghost Boyfriend, capable of Spectral Mode. In "Light," Lindsey has two shadows, one of which long ago grew to become her almost-real twin brother. She contemplates a vacation on a "pocket universe," a place "where the food and the air and the landscape seemed like something out of a book you'd read as a child; a brochure; a dream." Lindsey could be describing Link's own stories, creepy little wonders that open out into worlds far vaster than their shells. In a Link story, someone is always trying to escape and someone is always vanishing without a trace. Lovers are forever being stolen away like changelings, and when someone tells you he'll never leave you, you should be very afraid. Exquisite, cruelly wise and the opposite of reassuring, these stories linger like dreams and will leave readers looking over their shoulders for their own ghosts.

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December 1, 2014

The cover of Link's new short story collection--the advance copy, anyway--is blanketed with raves from major authors. To be sure, her stories are wonderful creations; the author has a way of concocting a unique world in each piece and drawing in the reader. "The Summer People," for instance, features an Appalachian girl who minds the house of some unseen people, who seem to be both hoarders and fairies. In the futuristic "The New Boyfriend," teenage girls have superficial and dysfunctional relationships with life-sized boyfriend dolls. In "Light," a plucky, hard-drinking woman with two shadows employed at a company that ships and houses the inert victims of a mysterious sleeping epidemic gears up for a hurricane. VERDICT Link's fiction could be described as a combination of George Saunders's eerie near-reality mixed with Amy Hempel's badda-boom timing, plus a dose of Karen Russell's otherworldly tropical sensibility. In short, the tales are imaginatively bizarre yet can be seen as allegorical representations of our own crazy modern world. Most of the protagonists here are female and resourceful; it's a pleasure to immerse oneself in fantasy worlds where women aren't victims or pale stereotypes. [See Prepub Alert, 8/22/14.]--Reba Leiding, emeritus, James Madison Univ. Lib., Harrisonburg, VA

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2015
Link, well known to fantasy fans and others who enjoy the weird in fiction, has gathered nine stories bound to captivate a broad audience. Humor, outrageous concepts, and first-class world building make these stories unforgettable. In Light, a woman who lives on the Florida Keys drinks constantly, picks up men who are big trouble, and has two shadows and a cozy life until her twin brother slides a doppelgnger into her bed during a lulu of a hurricane. The narrator of The Summer People has troubles of a different kind when her moonshine-loving father leaves her alone, tending to the weird people in the weird house, who always protect their own. Link's locations are almost in our world or time, but not exactly. The 15-year-old narrator of Secret Identity has come to New York to rendezvous with an older guy she met on an MMORPG; she has to overcome a raft of misconceptions; she and Paul Zell never quite manage to see each other; and she suffers a long list of hilarious humiliationstr's path'tique.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)