Evelyn Hampton Knihy

Similar in attitude to the condensed observations of Lydia Davis and the unexpected turns of George Saunders, Hampton's first collection of short stories reveals neurotic discomforts that become before our eyes less bizarre and more surprisingly familiar portraits of life in our new age of anxiety.Hampton’s stunned sentences will remind you, because you have forgotten, how piercingly disregulating life is. Discomfort is an amazing experience. -Stacey LevineEvelyn Hampton’s Discomfort is a stunning first collection of stories that take place in the gap that exists between the world and our perception of the world. And, when it has to make a choice, it comes down not on the side of reality but on that of embodied, eccentric perception. Hampton cannily reveals the uncanniness of all we think we know, and shows that that uncanniness belongs as much to our own minds as to things themselves. -Brian EvensonIn startling, often breathtaking ways, Evelyn Hampton examines self and object and word and world in these pages, moving with wonder and hopefulness through all the bewilderment and beauty that is the human predicament. A moving and impressive debut. -Carole Maso