Print Length: 256 pages
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (March 10, 2020)
Publication Date: March 10, 2020
Sold by: Hachette Book Group
A lush, glittering short story collection exploring female obsession and desire by an award-winning author Roxane Gay calls "a consummate storyteller."
From Kentucky to the California desert, these forty-two short stories -- ranging from the 80's and 90's to present day -- expose expose the hearts of girls and women in moments of obsessive desire and fantasy, wildness and bad behavior, brokenness and fearlessness, and more.
On a hot July night, teenage girls sneak out of the house to meet their boyfriends by the train tracks. Members of a cult form an unsettling chorus as they proclaim their adoration for the same man. A woman luxuriates in a fantasy getaway to escape her past. A love story begins over cabbages in a grocery store, and a laundress's life is consumed by her obsession with a baseball star. After the death of a sister, two high school friends kiss all night and binge-watch Winona Ryder movies.
Leesa Cross-Smith's sensuous stories -- some long, some gone in a flash, some told over text and emails -- drench readers in nostalgia for summer nights and sultry days. They recall the intense friendships of teenage girls and the innate bonds between mothers, the first heady rush of desire, and the pure exhilaration of womanhood, all while holding up the wild souls of women so they can catch the light.
THOUGHTS/REVIEW:
This is a collection of short stories that I needed in my life.
This is an exceptionally well curated collection that focuses and celebrates girls and women. I enjoyed the stories on love and desires, fantasy and fearlessness, as well as, empowerment and recklessness. The stories are pretty wild and amazing, but all just so much fun to read.
Leesa Cross-Smith's sensuous stories had me longing for memories and the nostalgia of just being a woman during the different phases of our life, from the reckless youth to the desires of the older woman. What an amazing adventure in reading this fantastic short story collection.
I highly recommend this.
Editorial Review:
"Leesa Cross-Smith is such a beguiling writer and her skills are on full display in So We Can Glow. These are stories about breathless love, lustful abandon, all that glitters, hot summers, cool pavement, sticky skin, beautifully beating hearts. There is such authenticity to these stories and nostalgia that is tempered with just enough of a clear-eyed understanding of the world as it is, not just how we hoped it might be. It's also refreshing to see a writer crafting stories that are so unapologetically for women, about women, a love letter to who we are, the best and worst of us, held high and true, so we can glow as brightly as we dare."―Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author
"Though the 42 stories here often masquerade as slices of domestic life, the scale of the emotional trajectories is treated with the weight of the epic. They are sexy and sly. The dialogue winks and sparks on the page, making every story feel like a flirt. The collection overloads the senses . . . Cross-Smith's descriptions are filled with equal amounts of violence and tenderness . . . Throughout, characters from earlier stories reappear to nudge us in the ribs, these rewarding inside jokes building depth and resonance. It is the strength of the female characters, though, that truly binds this collection together . . . The woman throughout this collection are constantly being revealed by a powerful inner light."
―New York Times Book Review
"Leesa Cross-Smith writes the way many people wish they could: ferociously, tenderly, and with a tremendous amount of heart. The stories contained in So We Can Glow showcase the very best of Cross-Smith's voice. They stick with readers long after the book is closed. This collection is tantalizing and Cross-Smith is a delight."―Kristen Arnett, New York Times bestselling author of Mostly Dead Things
"The magic of So We Can Glow is that no matter who you are, no matter your circumstances, no matter your gender identity, when reading this book you become the girls and women in these pages. You hope their hopes, dream their dreams, fantasize and love alongside them. Leesa Cross-Smith is some sort of sorceress."―Rion Amilcar Scott, PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize-winning author of Insurrections and The World Doesn't Require You
"I so admire these stirring, sexy, haunting stories about the darkest corners of women's inner lives. A treat for the soul and the senses, and funny too. Leesa Cross-Smith is a wonderful storyteller."―Alexia Arthurs, award-winning author of How to Love a Jamaican
"So We Can Glow is precise and yearning in all the right ways. Cross-Smith understands sex and lust and love and all the ways they can get crossed up. Inventive in form, drifting from poetry to prose to script to smartphone text to receipt, Cross-Smith explores our affections, how they flourish or, more often, unravel, and her writing delivers this wisdom with blunt honesty and sex appeal to spare. It brings into existence secrets we didn't even know we had."―JM Holmes, award-winning author of How Are You Going to Save Yourself
"These stories, brief but dense with emotion, will make you feel like you're falling in love -- again and again and again. They drop the reader into moments that feel soaked with longing, like strawberries in champagne. Through Cross-Smith's characters, we experience the messiness, the ache, but mostly the glory of female desire."―Amy Bonnaffons, author of The Regrets and The Wrong Heaven
"Different as they are, all the stories focus on the strange hearts of women and girls -- brave and broken, longing and loving -- and weave together to create this structurally playful and lyrically rich second collection."―The Millions, "Most Anticipated: The Great First Half 2020 Book Preview"
"Examines -- and delights in -- female obsession and desire . . . nodding to the complicated, indelible bonds between women."―Buzzfeed, "The Most Anticipated Books of 2020"
"If you're in need of some summer vibes, look no further than this short story collection from Leesa Cross-Smith . . .the characters in these stories are fully realized and compelling. With a magic mix of the bonds between women, sensual detail, a dash of nostalgia, and a lot of heart, this collection is an engrossing read that's perfect for bringing some light into winter."―Electric Literature
"Though the 42 stories here often masquerade as slices of domestic life, the scale of the emotional trajectories is treated with the weight of the epic. They are sexy and sly. The dialogue winks and sparks on the page, making every story feel like a flirt. The collection overloads the senses . . . Cross-Smith's descriptions are filled with equal amounts of violence and tenderness . . . Throughout, characters from earlier stories reappear to nudge us in the ribs, these rewarding inside jokes building depth and resonance. It is the strength of the female characters, though, that truly binds this collection together . . . The woman throughout this collection are constantly being revealed by a powerful inner light."
―New York Times Book Review
"Leesa Cross-Smith writes the way many people wish they could: ferociously, tenderly, and with a tremendous amount of heart. The stories contained in So We Can Glow showcase the very best of Cross-Smith's voice. They stick with readers long after the book is closed. This collection is tantalizing and Cross-Smith is a delight."―Kristen Arnett, New York Times bestselling author of Mostly Dead Things
"The magic of So We Can Glow is that no matter who you are, no matter your circumstances, no matter your gender identity, when reading this book you become the girls and women in these pages. You hope their hopes, dream their dreams, fantasize and love alongside them. Leesa Cross-Smith is some sort of sorceress."―Rion Amilcar Scott, PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize-winning author of Insurrections and The World Doesn't Require You
"I so admire these stirring, sexy, haunting stories about the darkest corners of women's inner lives. A treat for the soul and the senses, and funny too. Leesa Cross-Smith is a wonderful storyteller."―Alexia Arthurs, award-winning author of How to Love a Jamaican
"So We Can Glow is precise and yearning in all the right ways. Cross-Smith understands sex and lust and love and all the ways they can get crossed up. Inventive in form, drifting from poetry to prose to script to smartphone text to receipt, Cross-Smith explores our affections, how they flourish or, more often, unravel, and her writing delivers this wisdom with blunt honesty and sex appeal to spare. It brings into existence secrets we didn't even know we had."―JM Holmes, award-winning author of How Are You Going to Save Yourself
"These stories, brief but dense with emotion, will make you feel like you're falling in love -- again and again and again. They drop the reader into moments that feel soaked with longing, like strawberries in champagne. Through Cross-Smith's characters, we experience the messiness, the ache, but mostly the glory of female desire."―Amy Bonnaffons, author of The Regrets and The Wrong Heaven
"Different as they are, all the stories focus on the strange hearts of women and girls -- brave and broken, longing and loving -- and weave together to create this structurally playful and lyrically rich second collection."―The Millions, "Most Anticipated: The Great First Half 2020 Book Preview"
"Examines -- and delights in -- female obsession and desire . . . nodding to the complicated, indelible bonds between women."―Buzzfeed, "The Most Anticipated Books of 2020"
"If you're in need of some summer vibes, look no further than this short story collection from Leesa Cross-Smith . . .the characters in these stories are fully realized and compelling. With a magic mix of the bonds between women, sensual detail, a dash of nostalgia, and a lot of heart, this collection is an engrossing read that's perfect for bringing some light into winter."―Electric Literature
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