What I'm Reading: Mystery Lights - Stories
By Lena Valencia
What I’m Reading is a monthly feature of So Much Stuff, offering brief excerpts from contemporary novels and story collections you’ll want to add to your TBR pile.
Recently released from Tin House, the stories in Lena Valencia’s Mystery Lights are filled with menace and a sharp, satisfying wit. Complex women run head to head with harrowing circumstances—sometimes of their own inadvertent creation. Just like, you know, life. Escapes are narrow, and where in one story violence may only threaten, in the next it bursts through, all too credibly rendered, even when the storyline ventures into more speculative fiction.
The excerpt below is from the opening story “Dogs.”
She put in her earbuds and played one of Sabrina’s mixes. It had been a while since she’d listened—really listened—to the playlists her daughter had made her. This mix featured mostly sweet-voice men singing about despair, true despair, not just the vapid tripe that Sabrina used to favor. She slowed her pace. How could Sabrina understand this sadness at fifteen? Part of Ruth wanted to throw her arms around her, shield her from whatever it was that was making her so upset, that was causing her to listen to these songs. The other part wanted to shake her for being so fragile. The desert spooled out ahead as she trudged heavily on, and a dulcet voice crooned in her ear about wandering streets at night, drunk on convenience store malt liquor.
She’d walked a little over a mile when, through the gentle guitar chords in her headphones, she heard a dog barking behind her. She turned, expecting to see a retriever straining a leash, a walker scolding him and apologizing. He’s harmless! But no. Instead she saw—and she counted—five dogs. No leashes or humans. These were not the little terriers that warmed the laps of the wealthy in Beverly Hills. These were dogs you’d get to guard your shit.
You can find Mystery Lights HERE. Happy reading!