Are You There and Other Stories

This dynamic collection of 27 stories offers a wealth of fantastical and horrifying settings. Life after death, digital personalities, alien invasion, and Lovecraftian horror. It includes "Life on the Preservation," the basis for Skillingstead's Philip K. Dick nominated novel of the same name. In the title story, a parapolice detective in hot pursuit of a serial killer receives help from a responsive memory module of the killer's mother, but soon discovers that he might be falling in love with the module. Edgy and surreal, each tale reflects on familiar, emotional issues and complex relationships from new and imaginative angles. "Jack Skillingstead's stories are smart: smart in the sense of intelligent, savvy, stylish, biting, and succinct. And they all have heart. Choose any tale in Are You There-the Ellisonian opener "The Avenger of Love," the tersely convolute "Life on the Preservation," the Shirley Jacksonesque "The Tree," the poignant closer "Stranger on a Bus," or any of the gems in between-and that story will flash upon you like a memory, with a light at once familiar and uniquely brilliant. I am not only a reader of these pieces, but a devout admirer of their art." -Michael Bishop, author of Brittle Innings