Slug and Other Stories

Milks (Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body) delivers a thought-provoking and sometimes fantastical collection about identity and desire, often employing the conventions of computer games, popular teen magazines, and choose-your-own-adventure tales. “The Strands” recounts trans person Tegan’s devastating breakup with their ex-girlfriend Sarah, whose quickly growing strands of leftover hair threaten to take over Tegan’s apartment nearly a year after Sarah’s departure. Similar surrealisms abound in the title story, in which a sexually adventurous writer metamorphizes into a slug after having sex with one. The best stories, however, are those that explore the notion of the body as a site of both connection and confinement, as is the case in the labyrinthine “Twins,” in which twin sisters Allison and Stephanie Starling contemplate switching places as part of a plot to rescue their English teacher, whom they suspect has been abducted and replaced by an extraterrestrial impostor—or when nonmonogamous lovers Fred and Warren’s long-distance relationship becomes threatened by their use of a mysterious “remote sexual stimulation device” in the ill-boding “Take Us to Your LDR.” Unapologetically bold and insightful, this will delight Milks’s fans. Agent: Rachel Crawford, Wolf Literary Services. (Nov.)