Things to Do When You're Goth in the Country

I loved this collection of short stories. I forget what podcast I was listening to that proclaimed that it's the book everyone who read J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy should be reading instead. Author Chavisa Woods managed to escape the gravitational weight of her hillbilly backwoods origins but still writes from a place of recognition and compassion. It's the rural poor, bible belt, military heartland that voted overwhelmingly in favour of Trump. Chavisa on the other hand is a New York based, lesbian performance artist and poet author.

The writing is sharp and with some fantastical elements but for the most part hews close to her experience growing up in rural Illinois. Get out of your East coast liberal, MFA literary bubble, reading about rich white people problems and dive right into this exploration of meth labs, ufos, truck stop prostitutes, fundamentalist Christian sects, Mensa party acid trips and a living replica of the Gaza strip on someone's head.