Other minds and other stories

Sims (White Dialogues) draws on academia, art, and technology for a superb collection about identity and memory. In the Lynchian "Unknown," a man begins to receive eerie voicemails from a hidden number after lending his phone to a stranger at the mall. The magnificent "Portonaccio Sarcophagus" opens with the narrator visiting a burial tomb at a museum in Rome, then zags into describing a mysterious photo of his mother taken years earlier in an Italian cemetery, in which a blurry Grim Reaper--like figure hovers in the background; the narrator's free associations gradually accrue into a story about his mother's worsening memory loss. Throughout, Sims boldly plays with form, such as in "Introduction to the Reading of Hegel," which consists of one paragraph that extends for nearly 30 pages and chronicles an adjunct professor's self-sabotage as he attempts to apply for a prestigious fellowship. Here and elsewhere, the prose is shot through with pitch-perfect observations and dark undercurrents (while addressing the panelists in a letter, the narrator "closed his eyes and tried to imagine them. The way that criminal profilers must cast themselves into the thoughts of the serial killers they track, he attempted to project himself into his rejector"). These brilliant stories are hard to shake. Agent: Jin Auh, Wylie Agency. (Nov.)

Sims' collection balances high-concept fiction with visceral thrills. There are few writers who would think to blend a zombie narrative with ruminations on the epistemological implications of the undead, as Sims did in the novel A Questionable Shape (2013). The stories in this collection tap into a similar vein of both uncanny menace and philosophical speculation, but Sims demonstrates a wider range of styles and tones, ranging from the academic satire of "Introduction to the Reading of Hegel" to the grotesque violence of "Pecking Order." The best of these stories allow Sims to pull off unlikely juxtapositions, such as "The New Violence," in which a writer's thoughts on Italian giallo films and the details of an ancient Etruscan jug begin to converge in unsettling ways. Another highlight is "The Postcard," which begins with the detective narrator meeting with a new client, an aging lawyer whose late wife had dementia. As the detective investigates the origins of a mysterious postcard his client received, the story slowly becomes a surreal meditation on memory and loss as it proceeds toward a haunting denouement. Cyclical structures are on display in several stories, including the aptly titled "Unknown," which begins with a man letting a woman use his phone at a mall, only to become fixated on her conversation and its ramifications: "She was whispering angrily. You'll never find me, he thought he heard her say. Never." Sims writes obsession well, evoking the ways in which a seemingly quotidian encounter can transform into something bizarre or alienating when seen from the right angle. Readers who enjoy their fiction heady will find a lot to enjoy here. This ambitious collection finds the right balance of familiar and experimental. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.