This book is so weird.

It’s a short story collection, but the stories are hardly long enough to earn the moniker, ‘story.’ It’s more like a collection of thirty-four story seeds, ideas which could germinate into a real story or even a novel.

At first I was put off by the conceit. I wondered if Klosterman simply threw the fruit of a brainstorming session between two covers and called it a book. But then the ‘stories’ started to grow on me. Where else can you read about a device that transfers the pain of childbirth to the spouse? Or a job that challenges the accept norms of physics to the point that you can never quit? Or the odds of lightning hitting a whale in mid-jump? Or a hit-man who takes years to set up the deed. Or . . . well, you get the point.

Klosterman’s mind holds an embarrassment of riches. I look forward to reading whatever spills out of it next.

Klosterman, Chuck. Raised in Captivity: Fictional Nonfiction. Penguin, 2019.