by Jessi Jezewska Stevens ’18
Published by And Other Stories Publishing (2024)
Eleven stories of desire that traipse across their landscapes, rearranging the reader's expectations as they go. In Berlin, an American expatriate organizes a party, rescinds the invitations, and then finds the party thrown anyway with consequences that belie the devil-may-care attitude of the guests.
Populated by fey expats, ardent psychiatrists, arch historians, and impossible friends who spin in and out of proximity to their narrators as they travel their enchanted orbits, Stevens' stories echo with a kind of urbane fairy-tale self-assertion that encourages the reader to stop and gaze in reverie at the articulation of the scenes, even as the stories' main characters go whirling off into their chaotic nights.