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Poignant and humorous, Greyhounds follows characters desperately navigating desire, obsession, and the minefields of power dynamics in relationships of all stripes
A couple buys a Betta fish in the hopes it will salvage their drowning marriage. A young girl, envious of her friend's terminal illness, begins fabricating symptoms of her own. Months after a fatal collision, a husband and wife begin driving incessantly, haunted by the memory of the teenage boy they killed. And while her widowed neighbor watches, a woman who has long struggled with hoarding finds her life forever changed when she begins acquiring greyhounds.
Unflinching and audacious, Smith-Stevens's debut short story collection compels readers to reckon with themselves through an unlikely cast of characters that somehow feel eerily—and intimately—familiar. A treasure for fans of Carmen Maria Machado and Marie-Helene Bertino.
"In one particular standout, "Neighbors," a widow watches her neighbor, who struggles with hoarding disorder, find meaning and joy in rehabilitating retired greyhounds but can't resist sabotaging that happiness. Threaded with dark humor and rendered with incisive prose, these stories will resonate with fans of Kristen Roupenian (You Know You Want This, 2019) and Marie-Helene Bertino (Exit Zero, 2025)."—Booklist
"Greyhounds is a simply stunning collection. I like to be surprised; I like a good, authentic gut punch; I like a succinct sentence that makes me gasp because it’s so true and perfect; I love messy, interesting women characters. Greyhounds delivers in all these ways, in spades."—Deesha Philyaw, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
"Greyhounds is a brilliant new addition into the canon of weird short fiction, sharp and finely attuned to how strange it is to be a human being. Smith-Stevens is the ideal chronicler of—and guide to—our alienated times, funny and profound, uncanny and wise, like Charon with a sense of humor."—Rachel Khong, My Dear You
"Smith-Stevens is a brave writer and gifted with the precision stylistic attack that I associate with the short-fiction renaissance of the 1980s. Greyhounds is a most welcome and satisfying thing. It digs deep into the ache of being human but does not stint on the laughs that sometimes accompany this ache. I admire this book."—Rick Moody, The Long Accomplishment
Emma Smith-Stevens is the author of The Australian. Her writing has appeared in BOMB Magazine, Lit Hub, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.