Motel Girl

Book excerpt: “Realistic absurdity ties together the short stories in Sanders’s intelligent and funny collection . . . at once comical, cringe-worthy, relevant and weird.” —Publishers Weekly Motel Girl is peopled by the colorful, the transcendent, the sane and insane—by egoists, self-deprecators, demons and drunks, by the well-meaning, and by monsters. From a Muscovite torn between the affections of her live-in bear and her boyfriend to a corporate bureaucrat who discovers the secret to immortality in a decrepit art museum, from a vengeful adolescent motel clerk to a legal proofreader poisoned on a subway platform, these short stories play by rules that might seem unorthodox to some, refreshing to others. This collection is proof that the form is alive and well—and breaking new ground—in the first half of the twenty-first century. Motel Girl amounts to an exploration of the contemporary laws of romance, longing and sex, of how the computerized, branded universe is now fully integrated into the fabric of our thought and behavior. Join in the journey, a frenetic and disarming joy ride. Taken as a whole, these stories create a new paradigm for the American short story, an expansion in narrative reach, creative power, and experimentation. “Sanders’s debut story collection Motel Girl inscribes its characters with rich inner lives and appealing texture . . . Whether dramatic or meditative, these stories are deft, enigmatic lyrics that pivot on an image or insight. Tired of a diet of addiction memoirs? Curl up with this collection . . . to let the literary senses revive.” —Rain Taxi Review of Books