Guilty Parties: Tales of Infatuation and Menace

by Laura Argiri

Small dreams can damn as much as full-blown nightmares, as proven in the short stories Laura Argiri has written in her debut collection, Guilty Parties . Small town life can host the bitterest gossip, and and small-minded folk can offer the cruelest taunts and regrettable deeds. A mother dwells on how broken her only daughter is, and whether her grandchild is all the crueler for it. A man's obsession with bettering his lot in life to impress a woman develops a fascination instead for poisonous snakes. A young wife is confronted by her husband's former boarding school roommate, a demented man whose misogyny has convinced him that she tore a rightful pairing apart. And literary agent lives for decades thinking that she caused a college classmate's suicide, then encounters the woman at a party.

Genres: Fiction

228 pages, Paperback

First published November 2, 2020

Reviews

[Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came across this book by chance in a local bookstore. It has no cover blurb, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I thought it may be horror based on the cover, but it wasn't. At least, not in the way I was expecting.

Argiri's prose is so beautiful and her writing has a strong, unique voice. All of the sections are unique. My favorite was the last section. These stories gave me a mild existential crisis, with some of the passages in the later stories making me tear up. You just never know what's going to hit you where you're vulnerable.

I wish this author were more well known, and I wish this book got more attention. Truly the best book I've read so far this year, and definitely one of the best short story collections I've read period.