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The eleven stories in Kellie Wells's debut collection cover a wide range of eccentric characters-from a young girl experiencing her friend's strange demise to a set of opposite-sex conjoined twins. Forced to deal with the debilitating confines of the physical world-usually manifest in some kind of deformity or affliction, from compression scars to mysterious blue skin-Wells's characters struggle to transcend their existential disappointments and find some way and someone to love.
In the title story, Ivy and her best friend Duncan struggle to understand their mortality as Ivy learns of his potentially fatal internal scarring caused by a moped accident. As Ivy says, "Things can get so strange so fast," and they frequently do in Wells's stories. But Ivy and Duncan help each other escape their frightening, difficult world, if only momentarily, through imagination, good humor, and closeness. "Godlight" addresses most specifically the questions that are evident in all the stories: Do you believe in God, and do you believe in reincarnation? Jonas, the Hyatt Regency Hotel's live-in light bulb replacement man, encounters two different characters-a child who lives in the hotel and a woman who claims that her identity has been altered for the Witness Protection Program-who ponder these questions. Meanwhile, Jonas is left wondering what has really become of his missing daughter, Emma.
The physical world is brought into question frequently in this collection, and in "My Guardian, Claire," we see what can happen when someone tries to transcend it-and succeeds. During a séance to reach the narrator's late mother, Claire reaches the spirit world and never truly returns. The narrator tries desperately to retrieve Claire through a hilarious trip to the Exotic Animal Drive-Thru Paradise.
Compression Scars is an eloquent and original collection that vibrantly captures the oddities of both the everyday and the out-of-this-world.
In the title story, Ivy and her best friend Duncan struggle to understand their mortality as Ivy learns of his potentially fatal internal scarring caused by a moped accident. As Ivy says, "Things can get so strange so fast," and they frequently do in Wells's stories. But Ivy and Duncan help each other escape their frightening, difficult world, if only momentarily, through imagination, good humor, and closeness. "Godlight" addresses most specifically the questions that are evident in all the stories: Do you believe in God, and do you believe in reincarnation? Jonas, the Hyatt Regency Hotel's live-in light bulb replacement man, encounters two different characters-a child who lives in the hotel and a woman who claims that her identity has been altered for the Witness Protection Program-who ponder these questions. Meanwhile, Jonas is left wondering what has really become of his missing daughter, Emma.
The physical world is brought into question frequently in this collection, and in "My Guardian, Claire," we see what can happen when someone tries to transcend it-and succeeds. During a séance to reach the narrator's late mother, Claire reaches the spirit world and never truly returns. The narrator tries desperately to retrieve Claire through a hilarious trip to the Exotic Animal Drive-Thru Paradise.
Compression Scars is an eloquent and original collection that vibrantly captures the oddities of both the everyday and the out-of-this-world.
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Reviews
"The people in these stories are vulnerable, eccentric outsiders attempting to find their way in a world that puzzles and dazzles them. Wells adeptly portrays both their vulnerability and their fortitude. Her strong, unaffected prose contrasts sharply with the surreal quality of many of the stories. This collection introduces a writer of startling imagination and great promise."
Library Journal
"By highlighting stories of people and places adapting to the impacts of a warmer climate, Van Noy shows us what communities in the South are doing to become more climate resilient and to survive a slow deluge of environmental challenges."
Ellen Akins, author of World Like a Knife
"Even in a crowded field, it is a rare pleasure to come across a prose stylist like Kellie Wells, whose intellect and language bid one another beautifully to a dance. Here is a thrilling debut from a writer so agile and subtle in her terms that, like Walter Abish and Kathryn Davis, she dares to be at play in the most unsettling questions of her day. Surely when the present generation of writers sh
Jaimy Gordon, author of She Drove Without Stopping