Today, we’re pleased to present an excerpt from Beth Gilstrap’s forthcoming collection Deadheading and Other Stories. Set in the Carolinas, Gilstrap’s fiction explores questions of gender, class, and geography, offering a series of haunting scenes from everyday life – or what Jared Yates Sexton called “heartbreaking worlds, but nonetheless beautiful.”

Born a missionary kid in Kobe, Japan, and homeschooled on the American Great Plains as part of an evangelical community, Jaye Viner straddles many worlds and too many personal interests. As an “EXvangical,” she now worships her cats and spends a great deal of time at the salon maintaining her blue hair.

Jane is a Los Angeles nurse who grew up in a Christian cult that puts celebrities on trial for their sins. Daniel is a has-been actor whose career ended when the cult family members nearly killed him for flirting with her.

In storytelling, we are in the middle of what I call the ‘age of the “strong woman” character’. If asked, probably everyone has a slightly different idea of what exactly we mean when we say, ‘strong woman.’ I like to think about strong women has any story where a woman main character has desires that transcend the stereotypical roles of women falling in love, keeping house, and raising babies. Many of the below novels are occupied with those familiar roles, but they explore them in extravagant, nail-biting ways that give new life to what are often old narratives about women in the domestic sphere, to breathe life and character into routines that used to be the backdrops for men’s desires.

Crime Reads posted their picks for what books to look out for on their publication date, and add to their TBR pile!

“…and that’s only the beginning.
I hear other junk food is at risk:
brownies, pastries, name it,
they’re removing it, the only chance
fifth graders have at happiness.”

“Calling America home comes with its own host of terrors for immigrants, especially those fleeing their countries of origin. From being referred to with often derogatory terminology to having to assimilate to appear as truly “American,” being an immigrant in the U.S. can be a fraught experience.”

“I met and befriended Cai the way I do almost every new friend: a book comes in the mail and I love it so much, I have to know the author! In Cai’s case that was Weather Woman, followed by Sinking Islands.”

“My mother believes she and my father are failures because their children are no longer “in the church.” The oft-recited proverb, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not turn from it,” haunts her, as though the only things that influence an adult child’s faith decisions are the rules of their childhood.”

“Not burned, not fire, but fire’s recourse—
its appetite. The 2×4 & 4×4 frame
discernible as a skeleton. An American-
built trailer, good sized, double wide,
out away from city lights. The sun moves
toward a low, pink throb. . .“

Thank you, Verse Daily, for featuring Carl Marcum’s “Field Notes W/ Stripped Trailer” from his collection A CAMERA OBSCURA!