SHORT STORIES

Save Me, Stranger: Stories

by Erika Krouse
Flatiron. Jan. 2025. 224p. ISBN 9781250240330. $26.99. F
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Edgar Award winner Krouse (Come Up and See Me Sometime: Stories) is no stranger to blurred boundaries in books; her debut memoir, Tell Me Everything, garnered attention beyond genre readers of true crime. This new collection of thought-provoking short stories is evidence that her fiction is as gripping as any unsolved mystery. She writes with bold, confident, literary strokes that shift between fast-paced plot points and quieter, often unsettling psychological moments, which all move toward a vision of something vital, transient, and worth chasing after. The collection begins with a description of the dead as a burden, but it’s done in a geographically literal sense that Krouse interrogates with nuance and grace. Each of the 12 stories has a wholeness and precision that showcase Krouse’s wonderful grasp of craftsmanship.
VERDICT Sometimes unexpected and often quiet in their delivery of characters who are reckoning about various themes and searching for salvation, these short stories fully embrace the format and further show Krouse as one who pushes readers to do some reckoning of their own.
Reviewed by Emily Bowles , Dec 20, 2024
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