Although This is Not Your City is Caitlin Horrocks’s debut collection of short stories, it is written with style and voice that could have come from the pen of a seasoned author. Spinning tales of humor, emotion, and tragedy, Horrocks offers thirteen stories with a view of humanity that, while often comical, is chilling in its authenticity.
Each of the thirteen tales in Horrocks’s work is told from the perspective of different women, in different parts of the world, at different ages, and in different circumstances. In addition to her unique writing style, Horrocks offers plot detail that has been meticulously researched for accuracy and integrity. Ursula in “Going to Estonia” tells Jukka of her home with the sharpness of someone who has lived for nineteen years in a land which does not see the sun for days on end in winter. Eril in “Zero Conditional” shares her experience with creatures, both human and animal, left by the biologist who taught the third-grade class Eril takes over.

With “It Looks Like This,” “Zolaria,” and “In the Gulf of Aden, Past the Cape of Guardafui,” Horrocks forces her readers to consider the impact of disability and disease on family and friends, but does so in a manner that becomes almost comforting in its assurance that these hardships, while heartbreaking, are able to be survived and even laughed about by those going through them. “Steal Small” presents a portrait of Lyssa dealing with the guilt of being unable to protect her younger sister, Mouse, from sexual abuse when they were children; however, Horrocks relates this in such a way that we discover Lyssa is not dealing with her guilt at all. Building on this picture of abuse, the reader is then offered a glimpse into the life of a woman who considers murdering her infant son because she believes he is the reincarnation of someone who murdered her in one of her 126 past lives. While readers will know they should hate this woman, the manner in which Horrocks presents her makes it nearly impossible to do so, creating a disturbing sense of understanding and forgiveness in readers toward a woman who would be otherwise deplorable in society’s eyes.
            The fictional realities presented in This is Not Your City challenge readers to do more than simply be entertained by a good tale. Horrocks challenges us to think about the world in which we live, the world we have created, and what we allow to happen here. Reading these stories, we are forced to consider those things that we know happen next door or eight houses down but refuse to acknowledge. Horrocks shines a light on those situations that we would prefer to pretend do not exist, which her characters are forced to confront head-on.

SARAH B GRAY-PANESI
Middle Tennessee State University