Greyhounds - Emma Smith-Stevens

In poignant and humorous prose, the stories in Greyhounds spotlight characters who are flailing—navigating obsession, desire, and the terrible complexities of relating to one another. 

A couple buys a Betta fish in the hopes it will solve their marital problems. A young girl, envious of her friend’s disability and illness, begins to fabricate symptoms of her own. In the sunset of a season of grief and guilt, a husband and wife begin to drive incessantly, months after hitting a teenage boy with their car. And while her widowed neighbor watches, a woman who has long struggled with hoarding finds her life momentarily transformed when she adopts a family of greyhounds. 

Unflinchingly honest and relatable, Smith-Stevens’s debut short story collection invites readers to reckon with the familiar through a new lens—a captivating collection for fans of Carmen Maria Machado and Marie-Helene Bertino.