A beloved, smart, and bold story collection surges back to life in a new print edition

Hailed as “revolutionary fiction,” When the Messenger Is Hot gleefully upends the short-story form, rendering the absurdities and possibilities of modern urban life with disarming humor and keen perception as Crane weaves through grief and womanhood. The women in Elizabeth Crane’s world are fierce and kind, damaged and optimistic. They are jilted lovers, absent daughters, twelve-steppers, and smart-asses, recovering from loss, addiction, or betrayal. From a woman who decides to live on the rooftop of her friend’s apartment (why not?), to a writer whose identity is compromised by the actress who portrays her, to a daughter who believes her deceased mother is still alive and living at the bus depot, these characters experience love and loss in a way that is both profoundly universal and uniquely theirs.
 

ELIZABETH CRANE is the author of the memoir This Story Will Change and six works of fiction, including the story collection Turf and the novel The History of Great Things. Her stories have been translated into several languages and have appeared in numerous publications, including Catapult, Electric Literature, and Literary Hub. Her work is performed regularly as part of NPR’s Selected Shorts and has been adapted for film and stage, most notably with Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre. She teaches in the low-residency MFA program at the University of California, Riverside–Palm Desert.

Foreword by Lisa Lucas

Introduction

The Archetype’s Girlfriend

Something Shiny

Privacy and Coffee

The Super Fantastic New Zealand Triangle

You Take Naps

Josie and Hyman Differ in Their Use of the Word Fuck

Year-at-a-Glance

Return from the Depot!

The Daves

He Thinks He Thinks

Christina

Proposal

An Intervention

When the Messenger is Hot

Good for You!

Acknowledgments