Weird Black Girls, Elwin Cotman
Weird Black Girls, Elwin Cotman
List: $25.99 | Sale: $18.20
Club: $12.99

Weird Black Girls
Stories

Author: Elwin Cotman

Narrator: Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Jade Wheeler, James Fouhey, Emily Lawrence, André Santana, Landon Woodson

Unabridged: 10 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/16/2024


Synopsis

Belletrist Book Club Pick

From Philip K. Dick Award finalist Elwin Cotman, an irresistibly unnerving collection of stories that explore the anxieties of living while Black—a high-wire act of literary-fantastical hybrid fiction.

A rural town finds itself under the authoritarian sway of a tree that punishes children. A pair of old friends navigate their fraught history as strange happenings escalate in a Mexican restaurant. A pair of narcissistic friends wreak havoc on an activist community. An aloof young man finds himself living through his lover’s memories. And a day of LARPing takes a cosmic turn.

In each of the seven stories in this collection, characters pursue their obsessions on paths to glory and destruction while around them their worlds twist and warp, oscillating between reality and impossibility. On display throughout is Cotman’s ability to reveal truths about the human experience—about friendship, love, betrayal, bitterness—through whimsy, horror, and fantasy. Elegiac in tone, imaginative and humorous in their execution, the character-driven stories in Weird Black Girls challenge, incite, and entertain.

About Elwin Cotman

Elwin Cotman was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where the post-industrial landscape greatly influenced his love for myth and adventure. He is the author of three prior collections of speculative short stories: The Jack Daniels Sessions EPHard Times Blues, and Dance on Saturday, which was a finalist of the Philip K. Dick Award. Cotman holds a BA from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA from Mills College.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jillian on August 16, 2024

The title of this collection appears to be unintentionally misleading. It draws its name from one of the stories in the book, but it’s not a good summary of its essence. Those looking for a collection of stories about weird black girls may be disappointed—the main characters of most of these stories......more

Goodreads review by Lee on May 26, 2024

The title is misleading as these stories are mostly focused on black men. Seven stories: two regular short story length, four of longer story length, and one, the title story, near novella length. Five are fantastical, two are realist. Two are really good, two are absolutely terrible. The common the......more

Goodreads review by Octavia on April 29, 2024

This Collection of stories is the very first I have read by this author, Elwin Cotman. The genres are seriously none close to what I normally read as a book choice. Honestly, the appearance of the strange tree (figure) piqued my curiosity, initially. I could not stop wondering what could possibly be......more

Goodreads review by Sarah on February 29, 2024

This turned out to be a frustrating read for me when it should have been perfect and I can’t quite put my finger on why. I think some of it had to do with the writing style, which is beautiful and astounding in places, and then overly flowery and dense in others. I’ll also add, that these stories wer......more

Goodreads review by Lit_Vibrations on May 23, 2024

Rating: 2.5/5 ⭐️ “Let the dreamer dream.” Idk why I didn’t DNF this book lol it was the weirdest collection of short stories that were way longer than they should’ve been. Of them all I really only liked 2 “The Switchin’ Tree” and “Triggered.” Also felt the title was a bit misleading considering some......more