ABOUT THIS BOOK

From a lightning death on an isolated peak to the intrigues of a small town orchestra, the glimmering stories in this debut collection explore how nature—damaged, fierce, and unpredictable—worms its way into our lives. Here moths steal babies, a creek seduces a lonely suburban mother, and the priorities of a passionate conservationist are thrown into confusion after the death of her son. Over and over, the natural world reveals itself to be unknowable, especially to the people who study it most. These tales of scientists, nurses, and firefighters catalog the loneliness within families, betrayals between friends, and the recurring song of regret and grief.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Emily Wortman-Wunder has been published in the Kenyon Review, Vela, Nimrod, High Country News, and elsewhere. She lives in Denver, Colorado, and teaches scientific writing at the University of Colorado.

REVIEWS

“I couldn’t help but think of Andrea Barrett when I read this collection with all its funny, inventive stories in which the natural world and humanity collide with each other. There’s such careful attention paid in these stories, to people and the environment alike.”—Carmen Maria Machado, judge, 2019 Iowa Short Fiction Award

— Carmen Maria Machado

“Populated with all manner of wild animals, endangered species, and flawed people, the endlessly readable stories in Not a Thing to Comfort You remind me of campfire ranger talks, if the rangers are Annie Proulx or Raymond Carver and the untended campfire burns down an entire forest. Wortman-Wunder now certainly enters the ranks of our finest naturalist writers, yet what gives these stories their remarkable power and depth is her lifetime of meticulous fieldwork on the always unpredictable human heart.”—Justin Hocking, author, The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld: A Memoir

— Justin Hocking

“Emily Wortman-Wunder’s stunning stories demand our attention. Graceful in style, bountiful in their knowledge of the natural world, they move effortlessly from Beethoven concertos to bear hibernacula, from suburban homes to rural trailers. These stories don’t mind getting their hands dirty excavating secrets, but they just as painstakingly illuminate lives in search of love and connection. A rich and affecting collection.”—Steven Schwartz, author, Madagascar: New and Selected Stories

— Steven Schwartz

“Not a Thing to Comfort You is a virtuosic debut collection of fiction that roils with sentence-level tension, narrative surprise, and the kind of immersion in a character’s consciousness that makes you consider if Emily Wortman-Wunder is an alchemist uniquely capable of mining the subjectivity of a rogue’s gallery of complicated women and refining those results into gold. This book reminded me why I love short stories.”—Steven Church, author, I’m Just Getting to the Disturbing Part: On Work, Fear, and Fatherhood

— Steven Church

“There’s a sleight-of-hand magic in Not a Thing to Comfort You. Emily Wortman-Wunder's characters are palpable and complex, and her psychological insights rival the likes of Jonathan Franzen and Jane Smiley. Yet she accomplishes this in a few pages of story, rather than a novel. Don’t come to this book seeking sentimentality or tired tropes. Wortman-Wunder’s voice and her sensibility are fresh, sometimes alarming, and always deeply satisfying.”—BK Loren, author, Theft: A Novel

— BK Loren

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

Not a Thing to Comfort You

Gustav and Vera

Bear

Otters

The Hitchhiker Rule

Life History of the Four-Foot Moth

The Endangered Fish of the Colorado River

Trespassing

Appletree Acres

Bad

Burning

REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you with an electronic file for alternative access.

Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.

It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.