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by Sam Cohen
"Queer, dirty, insightful, and so funny" (Andrea Lawlor), this coyly revolutionary debut story collection imagines new origins and futures for its cast of unforgettable protagonists - almost all of whom are named Sarah.
In Sarahland, Sam Cohen brilliantly and often hilariously explores the ways in which traditional stories have failed us, both demanding and thrillingly providing for its cast of Sarahs new origin stories, new ways to love the planet and those inhabiting it, and new possibilities for life itself. In one story, a Jewish college Sarah passively consents to a form-life in pursuit of an MRS degree and is swept into a culture of normalized sexual violence. Another reveals a version of Sarah finding pleasure—and a new set of problems—by playing dead for a wealthy necrophiliac. A Buffy-loving Sarah uses fan fiction to work through romantic obsession. As the collection progresses, Cohen explodes this search for self, insisting that we have more to resist and repair than our own personal narratives. Readers witness as the ever-evolving "Sarah" gets recast: as a bible-era trans woman, an aging lesbian literally growing roots, a being who transcends the earth as we know it. While Cohen presents a world that will clearly someday end, "Sarah" will continue.
"[S]tories are bound together...by a deep thematic interest in the multidimensionality of the self—especially the queer, Jewish, nonmale self—and the sometimes overwhelming number of possibilities of how a person or a life might be transformed... As with any collection of stories, some feel more fully realized than others...But in general, Cohen's book is impressively even, particularly for a debut. A bold collection." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[W]onderfully bizarre...Cohen cleverly reimagines the world through a queer lens and uses pop culture and fairy tale references to illustrate the various lives, stories, and worlds the Sarahs can inhabit. A thought-provoking work, Cohen's collection surprises and excites." - Publishers Weekly
"Ludic, provocative, and endlessly surprising." - Refinery29
"Sam Cohen's stories re-wire the brain. Enter into this multiverse of Sarahs you didn't know you knew, and you'll come out the other end thinking only in Sarahs, only of Sarahs. Sarahland is satisfyingly queer, dirty, insightful, disarmingly generous, astonishing in its craftsmanship and so funny. Easily one of my favorite collections of short fiction ever!" - Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl
"Reading Sarahland is pure pleasure - what a voice! What a constant flow of funny and vulnerable and distinct awarenesses! Sam Cohen's writing is joyously itself and places its own keen, insightful gaze on the ways we relate to ourselves and to others." - Aimee Bender, author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
"The tilted, weird world of Sarahland is nothing short of revolutionary. Cohen gives a polyphonic voice and a kaleidoscopic face to the exuberant possibilities of modern identity. Hilarious and groundbreaking, I felt bereft when I finished reading, sad to leave the sealed brilliance of Cohen's whirring brain. Every story in Sarahland is outrageously smart, every line of prose unabashed, surprising, and blistering with style." - Kimberly King Parsons, author of the National Book Award long-listed collection Black Light
This information about Sarahland was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Sam Cohen was born and raised in suburban Detroit. Her fiction is published in Fence, Bomb, Diagram, and Gulf Coast, among others. The recipient of a MacDowell fellowship and a PhD fellow at the University of Southern California, Cohen lives in Los Angeles.
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