Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls: Breathtakingly Surreal Feminist Short Stories – Dark Comedy (Art of the Story)

Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls: Breathtakingly Surreal Feminist Short Stories – Dark Comedy (Art of the Story)

In this darkly comic and surreal collection from celebrated author Alissa Nutting, misfit women scramble for agency in a series of uncanny circumstances Throughout these breathtakingly creative seventeen stories spread across time, space, and differing planes of reality, we encounter a host of women and girls in a wide range of unusual jobs. A space cargo deliverywoman enlists the help of her cybersex partner to release her mother from cryogenic prison.  Desperate for affection and a more lavish lifestyle, a young woman falls under the corrosive spell of the fashion model for whom she’s given up everything to assist. A woman submits to a procedure that will turn her body into a futuristic ant farm, only to discover the sinister plans of her doctor. Though the settings these women find themselves in are as shocking and unique as they come, the emotional battles they face are searing and real. Some are trying to fight their way out of the cycle of abuse, while others must cope with the anguish brought on by infertility or the aftershocks of an abortion. Still others confront and embrace their most depraved desires, carving out power for themselves in worlds that relentlessly ask for conformity. Wickedly funny yet ringing with deep truths about gender, authority and the ways we inhabit and restrict the female body, Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls is a brilliant commentary on the kaleidoscope of human behavior and a remarkably nuanced satire for our times. “Alissa Nutting builds a dark catalog of behavior for her characters and the result is a kind of human bestiary, if humans were programmed to go down in flames, to run themselves aground, to seek ruin on every occasion. These fine stories, anthropologically thorough in their view of the contemporary person, illuminate how people hide behind their pursuits, concealing what matters most to them while striving, and usually failing, to be loved.” - Ben Marcus, author of Notable American Women “Like the futuristic love child of Mary Shelley and the Brothers Grimm, Alissa Nutting writes the most moving and uncanny pros. I want to be her avatar. Her future is great.” - Kate Bernheimer, author of Horse, Flower, Bird “Alissa Nutting’s stunning debut collection, Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls, reanimates the deadest of dead pans to a state of enameled kabuki solar veneer--a sanctified, sublime, full-throated and full-throtted static panic. Those fictions are panoplies of syntactic semantic seismic wonders. Don’t look now but you are looking at a sun raised to a higher power, and it’s not blinking.” - Michael Martone, author of Michael Martone “Nutting’s outrageous and excruciating writing makes my face split with laughter, often in public. She’s glorious chaos and utterly original--read her with joy.” - Lydia Millet, author of Love in Infant Monkeys “Nutting is one of the most wildly funny and provocative authors working today. Never afraid of the grotesque (rather, she likes to examine it at length), Nutting is comfortable exploring all aspects of the human condition, and this is all put to good use in her new collection of stories.” - Nylon Magazine In this darkly comic and surreal collection from celebrated author Alissa Nutting, misfit women scramble for agency in a series of uncanny circumstances: A space cargo deliverywoman enlists the help of her cybersex partner to release her mother from cryogenic prison. Desperate for affection and a more lavish lifestyle, a young woman falls under the corrosive spell of the fashion model for whom she’s given up everything to assist. A woman submits to a procedure that will turn her body into a futuristic ant farm, only to discover the sinister plans of her doctor. Though the settings these women find themselves in are as shocking and unique as they come, the emotional battles they face are searing and real. Some are trying to fight their way out of the cycle of abuse, while others must cope with the anguish brought on by infertility or the aftershocks of an abortion. Still others confront and embrace their most depraved desires, carving out power for themselves in worlds that relentlessly ask for conformity. Wickedly funny yet ringing with deep truths about gender, authority, and the ways we inhabit and restrict the female body, Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls is a brilliant commentary on the kaleidoscope of human behavior and a remarkably nuanced satire for our times. Alissa Nutting is an assistant professor of English at Grinnell College. She is the author of the story collection  Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls , as well as the novel  Tampa .