Small, Burning Things

by Cathy Ulrich

SMALL, BURNING THINGS is the second short story collection by Cathy Ulrich, the award-winning author of GHOSTS OF YOU, and is another searing, full-length book of her signature lyrical and fierce flash fiction. Ulrich is a writer with a fresh and singular voice whose stories are sharply cut like brilliant diamonds, each one perfectly shaped by pressure, heat, and light. Where there's smoke, there's flames.

192 pages

Published July 10, 2023

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) Ulrich’s second collection contains 50 flash fiction pieces, most of which were first published in literary magazines. She often uses the first-person plural and especially the second person; both “we” and “you” are effective ways of implicating the reader in the action. Her work is on a speculative spectrum ranging from magic realism to horror. Some of the situations are simply bizarre – teenagers fall from the sky like rain; a woman falls in love with a giraffe; the mad scientist next door replaces a girl’s body parts with robotic ones – while others are close enough to the real world to be terrifying. The dialogue is all in italics. Some images recur later in the collection: metamorphoses, spontaneous combustion. Adolescent girls and animals are omnipresent. At a certain point this started to feel repetitive and overlong, but in general I appreciated the inventiveness.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Lori]

I am working as the publicist for this gorgeous collection of flash and short stories. This is a hot little thing you are not going to want to miss! Hit me up if you are interested in reviewing the book, or in interviewing Cathy, or any other form of coverage!

[Grim-Mama · Rating 5 out of 5]

[This is the second short story collection from Cathy Ulrich. Small, Burning Things is a full-length book of signature lyrical and fierce flash fiction. Described to me as “magic trapdoors, plummeting readers into enticing, twisted story-worlds where girls disappear into thin air, fall from the sky, ignite into flames, crash through ice, and leave behind dirty, elusive footprints in their wake.”]

Given that description I jumped into this book and totally fell in love with it. I can see myself rereading these stories again and again. 50 story snapshots with some feeling connected, feeding or maybe bleeding into one another, and all sequenced in the right flow and order. Each one giving you just enough to see the emotion (or void) in a picture, a scene, a scenario or persons mind.

I can’t say I’ve read much that is similar - the author has a very unique voice. The closest parallel maybe would be if you like Brian Evenson give this a try. I also imagined the musical backdrop for these stories would be a soft play of The Cure (disintegration of course), or Bjork (anything!), or remember that song in Twin Peaks Fire Walk with me from the bar (Julee Cruise - Questions in a World of Blue). What I’m trying to say is this book is a whole mood and I’m here for it. It’s strange, whimsical and very visual. It’s eerie, whispered and melancholy, but not quite sad.

A huge thanks to Lori Hettler (TNBBC) for getting an early copy of Cathy’s book into my hands. I really enjoyed this one. Its official release with Okay Donkey is July 11.

[Jessie (Zombie_likes_cake) · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, let's have a little dance for me since I was offered an advanced digital copy of "Small, Burning Things". I usually don't like reading digitally (which for me means on my phone) but if it is something short I do it and it can actually be convenient. And flash fiction (or micro-fiction, I am bit fuzzy on the differences) is pretty much the ideal short form to read on the go on my phone. Additionally I loved Ulrich's debut collection, read that in 2020 and still think it's tragically underrated, like people gotta stop dismissing short fiction and have a good time! The other advantage is that me and short fiction, we are on such a roll this year. I mean I am always interested in reading collections but this year is one of those years where everything I pick up in that regard turns out spectacular.

With all of that I was really excited to dive into Ulrich's newest tiny fiction foray. In one way this read comparable to her first collection, women and girls are at the center but it was missing the strong link of theme that her first book had (seriously, look into "Ghosts of You", it's beyond phenomenal). With that, there was some up and down, I rate my stories when I read a collection and I handed out the whole range of stars and everything in between. I think some of these will stick with me for a long time, others I forgot as soon as it was over. Grief, death, suicide, societal pressures particular to woman- and girlhood. Love, heartbreak, obsession, betrayal: there are a lot of topics in here. Some are realistic stories, some have a paranormal or speculative element. Some were honestly so creative, some were a bit weird. You get a lot in here, not just in numbers (it's 50 all together).

My biggest qualm is probably the varying degrees of impact these had on me, I averaged out to a 3.2 by the end which isn't exactly the biggest endorsement. But hear me out: whenever Ulrich nails the concept of a story, I was in awe. There are so many fantastic ideas in here. What I liked most was often the dreamlike atmosphere she infuses these tales with, and of course the choices of narrative voices. Many of these are told in 2nd person (both singular and plural), characters often don't have names but are called the surgeon, the wife, the magician which both adds such a fascinating layer of universality, it's so easy to insert yourself into these stories. I also really like this genre corner Ulrich dug out for herself: it's blend of mild Horror, crime and feminist lit fic while also dipping into magical realism. It's definitely for those readers who appreciate creative and evocative short fiction but also for those who want to give it a try and see what you can do with itsy bitsy 2-3 pages, you'll be amazed to see how much that can be in the case of Ulrich.

In my favorite stories daughters compare a string of dead cows in the river with the death of their father, we find babies, a scientist turns a girl into a cyborg and a boy falls in love with her because of that, a group breaks through the ice in winter, you date the clones of your boyfriend, an axe murderer walks free in the bar where the woman whose leg he chopped off works as a stripper, a woman has a belly full of snakes, teenagers jump to their deaths wearing their mother's old wedding gowns, we dig through a stranger's purse and young girls combust into flames-again. But there is so much more.

3.5* rounded up because I like my favorites that much.

My top 12:
12) A Different Kind of Smoke
11) Every Time You Fall in Love
10) Like Doll Parts
9) A Girl in Pieces
8) A Burning Girl (ii)
7) Things We Found in Your Hair
6) The Axe Murderer Doesn't Get Caught
5) We Used to Play with Baby Dolls
4) The Hole in the Center of Everything
3) The Things We Found in Your Purse
2) How We Fossilize
1) The Falling Girls

The 3 I really didn't get on with:
The Girls in the Yard/ There's no Word for a Mother Who Has Lost Her Children/ The Former Yo-Yo Champion Plans His Day

[Dianah (onourpath) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cathy Ulrich offers us a second terrific volume of flash fiction with Small, Burning, Things; and how lucky for us. Her stories explore the angst and confusion of teenage years, the complications between lovers, and the quiet struggle of the self; and the brush with which she paints has been dipped in the darkest of colors. From ostriches, to falling girls, to unfaithful magicians, to boyfriend clones, to boy detectives, to childless mothers, to man-hungry alligators, to the absence of organs, to the Yo-Yo World Champion, Ulrich paints a rich tapestry of ordinary life wed to magical realism. Dryly humorous and whip-smart, Ulrich mesmerizes as she spools out her sublime stories. 

[Nan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my first Ulrich collection, and I have to admit I was skeptical. My middle school English teacher always told me to avoid the word "things". Here was a collection with "things" in the title. But I learned that in Ulrich's hands, "things" are not lazy placeholders. They are the parts of us we hide in our pockets — the key to a forgotten door, the wad of stolen cash, the torn-up love letter. They are the secrets and lies that make us combust. They are the dust we become.

I loved everything about this collection. Ulrich is a master of first lines. They often slip us down the slide into the weird. It feels ordinary when she does it, but by the end of the sentence…you’re a little disoriented, too down the forest path to turn around and come back. Here are a few of my favorite firsts —

“The girl you love is becoming a swan.” (Transformation, Metamorphosis, Swan)

“This girl at school shows up with a robot arm arm one day.” (A Girl in Pieces)

“You marry the dead girl.” (Through the Veil of her Hair)

Then there is the twister game Ulrich plays with language. Note the hyphenated adjectives(all from Birds We Had Become): “our girl-faces on trash-can milk cartons”, “branches of wind-sway trees”, “the slump-shouldered walks of our fathers”, “flutter-sweet language of the birds we had become”.

Perfect.

How does she do it?

[M. K. French · Rating 4 out of 5]

We open with the thoughts of a girl about to burn, and her thoughts are all focused on the social niceties that girls endure in an effort to belong. There's uncertainty and a kind of grief, fire and a sense of loss. It sets a tone for the stories, all sharp edges and without neat conclusions. The loss is manifest in the children in farm country whose father drowned, a girl marrying a ghost, the mother smoking cigarettes she found under her missing daughter's bed, a twin grieving her lost sister, the woman constantly pregnant and unable to be anything else.

There are also stories of transformation. Girls with robot parts, pieces of a magician's assistant living after being severed, people changing their roles in society. Some of these are third person stories, some are second person. A lot of the stories are uncomfortable, dealing with the negative emotions that people hate discussing or feeling. Whether it's death or loss or cheating or murder, these are tiny fragments of stories, some with a kick that the ending gives, making them that much more painful or disturbing to read. Their brevity means you get to give it meaning, and what the fire will mean in each story.

[Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know I’m going to be in the minority with my rating, but it seems to perfectly align with the fact that I’m also in the minority of the reader demographic this far: the only guy. I shed light on this observation simply because I feel like Cathy Ulrich’s Small, Burning Things is a collection of disconnected short stories that certainly seem to aim for more of a female readership. I don’t know how to explain it, but I jus found myself struggling to relate or latch onto these shorts that felt more like fleeting thoughts shared intimately between two friends under the stars. Now this isn’t to say that it’s something akin to a Twilight or 50 Shades of Grey—as it’s not romance—but I couldn’t help but feel like I just wasn’t being spoken to throughout. About halfway through when some of the stories began to lean a little more supernatural—minus the suspense and thrills—another collection of unique yet more enthralling shorts came to mind, Darrin Doyle’s The Dark Will End the Dark (which I think Lori also worked with in promotion). Small, Burning Things felt like reading an American-Midwest high school girl’s intimate collection of diary entries–I’m feeling during the transition from summer to fall near the end of fair season.

Regardless, many thanks to Lori of TNBBC fame for providing me with an advanced review copy.

[Eileen · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 honestly this was beautifully written and I feel privileged to have the chance to read and give my honest review. (Thank you, Lori) The stories all seem to verge on the strange. This honestly reminds me of 19 Claws (by Agustina Bazterrica). The stories are short, and some as much as a paragraph. They all manage to make you think and imagine being in another’s shoes / world. I love the way these can terrify you, but also hit home on feelings. This for me was more of a “pick up, read a few. Then pick up again another time” I don’t often read short stories right thru. I did thoroughly enjoy them though.

[Melissa H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of flash fiction. These stories are beautiful, strange, playful, poignant, magical, yet grounded in emotional truth. All rendered in exquisite prose. This book is a gem!