The Doll's Alphabet

DEBUT The three-page opening story sets the surreal feminist tone of Grudova's first collection. Greta learns to "unstitch" herself, and when other women see her, they can't help but shed their physical forms as well. In "Waxy," set in a world similar to Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale, women go to school to learn to take care of men. The unnamed narrator works in a factory painting sewing machines and is happy to meet a beautiful man despite his lack of "papers" and tendency to wet himself. "Rhinoceros" describes a couple's struggle to survive on the money and useless foodstuffs, such as flour or overripe grapes, that Nicholas earns drawing sea monkeys, tins, and other objects they find. Many stories feature childbirth, although the babies are deformed or "pink lumps" and unrecognizable humans. Grudova succinctly details the lives of women as they try to cope with fantastic yet uncannily familiar realities.