Verge

Starred review from December 9, 2019
In this brilliant collection, Yuknavitch (The Book of Joan) chronicles people outside society’s margins. In “Cusp,” a teenager in rural Texas comes of age while acting as a drug mule at a prison. “The Organ Runner” follows a young girl as she works to ferry kidneys for illegal backroom transplants, while “Second Language” deals with sex trafficking in Portland, Ore. In “A Woman Refusing,” a frustrated ex-husband refuses to aid his former spouse, who stands nude atop a high-rise, threatening to jump. The incest-tinged “Second Coming” describes an at-home artificial insemination involving a sexually naive woman and her married sister. In “Mechanics,” a woman flirts with a potential new lover while working under the hood of her car. The stories are consistently incisive, with sharp sentences and a barreling pace. The subject matter is pretty dark stuff, but Yuknavitch does offer an occasional ray of hope or rallying cry of resilience for her characters trapped by addiction, forced sex work, or bad marriages. This riveting collection invites readers to see women whose points of view are typically ignored. Agent: Rayhané Sanders.