Midnight at the Organporium

Equal parts surreal and wickedly droll, Campbell’s collection of 12 stories traverses reality in a way that highlights the extraordinary within everyday life. The menagerie of tales taps into an array of offbeat topics. In “Death Sure Changes a Person,” a man’s jealous wife keeps returning from the dead, while in the title story a thief tries to steal a heart from the Southside Mall. “New Growth” is a nightmare-inducing look into the life of a woman whose houseplant seems more aware than she is of her boyfriend’s abusive nature. “The Rapture” is a poetically harrowing look into the progression of white flight in suburban areas. Though this may sound like a mashup of unrelated oddities, the stories have been cleverly arranged to maintain a coherent and alluring tone, and Campbell’s versatility is impressive. Each tale is dryly funny, poetic, poignant, dark, and trippy. Readers who are hungry for a quick visit to somewhere left of reality will gladly immerse themselves in this profoundly avant-garde book. (Apr.)