If a Stranger Approaches You

Highly acclaimed poet and novelist Kasischke's first collection is a surreal, sometimes shocking, and often humorous journey to the dark side of American domestic life. Kasischke (Space, in Chains) transports the reader to an alternate world where things are rarely what they seem, where violence and horror intermingle with beauty and absurdity, and the false idealism of human relationships is exposed. Her characters at first seem like no one we know, but we soon discover that they are we and we are they. In the timely title story, a woman confronts possible terrorism and (along with the reader) must answer the question, What would I do if this happened to me? These absorbing, disconcerting stories provide no easy answers and the author gives nothing away, often leaving readers to arrive at their own conclusions.