This Is Salvaged: Stories [Paperback]

Winner of the High Plains Book Award Fresh and urgent.& Varas words, frugal and fastidious, are a window into the unholiness of modern life. To read Varas short stories is to briefly inhabit a mind attuned to the fumbling and freedom of having a body.& These stories, similarly, reveal the leaky boundaries between our bodies and the universe, and bare whats vulnerable, and beautiful, underneath. The narrator of the title story in this collection is an unappreciated artist who beholds a warming planet and wishes to express that the precariousness of life is, among other things, darkly funny. This thesis propels the stories that follow.& The exuberant optimism of Varas characters allows the author to approach heavy topicspredatory bosses, globalization, class differencewith levity. Droll, astute snapshots of human relations. An anthology that will remind you to cherish lifes strange little moments and be in awe of the big ones. Vauhini Vara is on a roll.& Shes back with a short-story collection that probes the relationships between people, observing humanity in multiple stages of life with humor and keen awareness. Varas writing is emotional, arresting, chilling, surprising and effortlessly radiant. It takes tremendous courage and wit to look with wonder at the darkest, most shameful places in the human heart and make them hilarious, tender, and deeply moving; Vauhini Vara can do this magic with astonishing ease. Ive been a fan since I read the story I, Buffalo years ago, and am so glad to (finally!) have a collection of Varas stories in hand to admire and love. Vara is a master storyteller, but more than that, she is the keeper of grief and shame dealt with in masterful strokes of directness, strangeness, and fearlessness. Inside each strange but recognizable story in I finished The stories in Vauhini Varas Beautiful&takes us into the lives of women and girls, who often struggle to connect and communicate. These dazzling stories take a kaleidol3I