Let Me Out Here: Stories

by Emily W. Pease

For fans of Mary Gaitskill and Kelly Link, Let Me Out Here explores the underbellies and strange desires of our neighbors, our loved ones, ourselves.
In her award-winning debut collection, Emily W. Pease is at work redefining the short story. Let Me Out Here explores the underbellies and strange desires of our neighbors, our loved ones, ourselves.

A co-ed takes up/leaves school with a mysterious cab driver who’s been calling every night on her dormitory’s hall phone; a family isolated by their faith hikes to a waterfall in search of healing; a mother sets her balcony on fire after an awkward family dinner; a woman befriends the snakes her preacher boyfriend keeps in their shed. This revealing collection offers a deep empathy for people doing the best they can, despite themselves.

Spread over varied landscapes of the South and offering surprising moments of raw revelation, the characters here find themselves at crossroads or alone on an empty street at night. With Let Me Out Here, Pease joins the ranks of Mary Gaitskill, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Kelly Link, and adds to their tradition a deft, singular style and a voice as darkly funny as it is exacting.

Let Me Out Here is the 2018 winner of the C. Michael Curtis Short Story Book Prize.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

232 pages, Paperback

First published March 19, 2019

Reviews

[Electra · Rating 4 out of 5]

J’hésite entre 4 et 5 étoiles. Je digère ces nouvelles en espérant pouvoir écrire un billet qui leur sera fidèle.

[Erica Bouris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, this was a good collection of short stories. Many of them focus in one way or another on characters that are - for the first time - encountering the broader world after a very shielded upbringing. She can voice the experiences of rural, religious, semi-cultish families reasonably well - they come across as genuine, not over-the-top and focused on recognizable moments of childhood and young adulthood. There were a few moments where it felt as if some stories were simply different versions of earlier stories which made me think that perhaps it would have been helpful to curate the collection somewhat differently. And yet, on a certain level, I actually appreciated that as it underscored the universal nature of these small moments and the lithe, personal stories that wind out from them.

[Lindsay Loson · Rating 3 out of 5]

"'That stings!' Before I could move, Kathleen swooped in with a towel. 'Girl,' she said, 'of course it stings! From now on, what you'll find is, everything stings.'"

I was gifted this collection of short stories by Hub City Press, and am very grateful to them for giving me this book and The Magnetic Girl, which I have yet to read. I was excited to read this but it fell short of my expectations. I've been reading a lot of short stories lately, but a lot of these were Christian/religious in nature and that is not something I really like reading. I have no relation at all to those teachings or beliefs, and am not particularly interested in hearing these kinds of stories, as I feel there are more important ones to be told from different religions, cultures, and perspectives. I enjoyed the stories about womanhood and about the niceties we all exchange with our neighbors, whether they're weird or pleasant. But overall, these stories were bogged down by religious jargon that meant nothing to me, so the characters and what they were trying to say fell flat and I felt disconnected from it all.

[Ronnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

We made a sad tableau.

This is a book--and writing--to enjoy. By its end, you won't want to be let out. The strong narrative voice in each of the 16 pieces gives them a presence. Collectively, they have just the right mix of laughter and tears, insight and irony, wit and wisdom, ignorance and (at least the potential for) bliss, love and betrayal, wheat and chaff, birthday cakes and razor cuts. Many of the settings seem heavy or overcast, often with an air of threat, the same air that fills a garage wherein poisonous snakes are kept in boxes. It's a book in which birds might just as easily be released from their cages as fall inexplicably from the sky. In "Primitive," one of my favorites here, a shady character named Donnie is remembered saying, "Fear isn't the same as being afraid. Fear is being alone." In retrospect, those words seem thematic, for most of these stories revolve around some type of aloneness and longing to belong. A grandmother's adult children might give her a robot to provide the companionship they're not willing to. A taken-for-granted wife and mother might take up Scherenschnitte only to use her unappreciated creations as tinder. A woman might go on a Tinder-like date armed. A dad might make a homemade pinata and forget to put in any candy. Yet it's not all somber. Pease will regularly make you laugh with just the right phrasing, usually unexpectedly. And she has a penchant for final lines that will linger in your mind.

First line (from "Submission," the collection's first story and another of my favorites):
"We were the family you wanted to avoid, dumb pilgrims stumbling along the Fiery Gizzard Trail on a mission."

[Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have little experience with the American South and the characters in these stories are people whose lives are so incredibly distant from my own, but the pain, sorrow, loneliness, anxiety, and regret that Pease instills in her writing are potent and relatable to anybody that has walked through life. I especially was affected by the tragedy of the female experience that she cultivates so exactly and specifically in these stories. Some were stronger than others, but the book was a great read as a whole.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed most of "Let Me Out Here". It evoked a sense of time and place through the stories, something I like to see and like to call regional fiction. It helps me get a feel for what people in other parts of our country think and experience. The author has a good style and voice. For the most part though, the shorter stories popped and the longer ones tended to make me anxious for their point or culmination.

[Leanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love the shorter vignettes scattered throughout. Honest and True tops the list for me, but I love the history and depth Pease gives to each character with the smallest details. It avoids feeling heavy handed or exhaustive, but each story - or individual character even - manages to feel entirely complete.

[Abra Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book of short stories. The characters are all a little odd and somehow kind of on the edge of sanity. I'm not a huge fan of short stories and because the stories were all kind of downers, I didn't love this book. The writing is all done so well though that you're immediately pulled into each story. And for that reason, I'm glad I read it.

[Kathleen]

DNF at 65% I loved the first couple of stories, but then I lost interest

[Whitney Gilbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book! I enjoyed every story. They were captivating and so great! Her style of writting is great.

[Karyn Logan · Rating 1 out of 5]

The description of the book was better than all the stories inside.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting and original set of stories.