From the author of the “urgent and heartfelt” (San Francisco Chronicle) novel The Companions, a genre-bending collection of interconnected short stories in the tradition of Jennifer Egan and Karen Russell.

An angry mother turns into a literal monster. A company in San Francisco can scrub your entire reputation and create a new one…for a price. A failed actor on a reality show turns into an unlikely world savior. And much more.

Through each of these twelve interconnected stories, Katie Flynn masterfully blends people, places, and even realities. From a powerful and “radiant” (Kassandra Montag, author of After the Flood) new literary voice to be reckoned with, this collection will stay with you after turn the final page.

Reviews

"A wonderfully eerie collection, Island Rule haunts and delights. Flynn’s writing is taught and teeming, making a world of bone mounds and monsters as alarmingly real as teenage angst and midlife crises. The creeping darkness of Island Rule revels in exploring darkness at the edges of our world, and what happens when we invite it in." —Erika Swyler, author of The Light from Other Stars

"In this eerie collection, Flynn challenges our notions of the familiar with 12 resonant interlocking short stories. Island Rule surprised me at every turn." —Chana Porter, author of The Seep and The Thick and the Lean

"Bruised and bruising, the stories in Island Rule bring to life a near-future in which loneliness and desire—for connection, visibility, and compassion— fuel every encounter. Funny, tender, and compulsively readable, Katie Flynn’s warm-hearted collection is an absolute gem, with an enormous generosity of spirit and keen wit on display in every line." —Maryse Meijer, author of Rag and Heartbreaker

“This short-story collection mixes the mundane and the bizarre with an authority stemming from its concrete sense of place . . . the overall effect is appealingly weird, as if the uncanny valley took literary form. A compelling exercise in worldbuilding and genre blending that toggles among the recent past, present, and near future.” —Kirkus Reviews