EBOOK
About
For readers of K-Ming Chang and Mariana Enriquez; A collection of 11 eerie, uncanny, and surreal short stories that move across time and place, blurring the lines of conventional reality.
In this debut collection, Puloma Ghosh uses the speculative as a catalyst to push her stories and characters beyond what reality allows. In short pieces of fiction, Mouth explores grief, intimacy, the body, mental health, and queerness, leaning into the bizarre and absurd while reaching for the truth.
• In "Dessication," a teen figure skater with necrophiliac tendencies is convinced the only other Indian girl at the rink is a vampire.
• In "The Fig Tree," a woman finally returns to Kolkata and is haunted by the ghost of her mother.
• "Leaving Things" questions the limits to companionship.
• In "K," a pathological liar investigates the ghost inhabiting her dorm.
• "In the Winter" is an undefined hookup.
• "Anomaly" is a first date in a postapocalyptic world.
• In "Lemon Boy," girl meets boy, boy might not be real.
• "Supergiant" asks of its readers just how far and how much we'd sacrifice for adoration, admiration, and immortality.
• In "Nip," addiction is bottled up and carried around.
• "Natalya" is a hair-raising autopsy of an ex-lover.
• And finally, in "Persimmons," a girl comes to terms as her community prepares her for sacrifice.
Delving into uncanny spaces and giving fangs, talons, and singular sharpness to the otherwise ordinary, awkward, and unmentionable, Mouth's surrealism is both unique and captivating. Experimenting with form and speculative elements, Puloma Ghosh reaches into otherworldly spaces while searching for answers to everyday struggles of isolation and ostracization, lust and longing, and complexities of the body.
In this debut collection, Puloma Ghosh uses the speculative as a catalyst to push her stories and characters beyond what reality allows. In short pieces of fiction, Mouth explores grief, intimacy, the body, mental health, and queerness, leaning into the bizarre and absurd while reaching for the truth.
• In "Dessication," a teen figure skater with necrophiliac tendencies is convinced the only other Indian girl at the rink is a vampire.
• In "The Fig Tree," a woman finally returns to Kolkata and is haunted by the ghost of her mother.
• "Leaving Things" questions the limits to companionship.
• In "K," a pathological liar investigates the ghost inhabiting her dorm.
• "In the Winter" is an undefined hookup.
• "Anomaly" is a first date in a postapocalyptic world.
• In "Lemon Boy," girl meets boy, boy might not be real.
• "Supergiant" asks of its readers just how far and how much we'd sacrifice for adoration, admiration, and immortality.
• In "Nip," addiction is bottled up and carried around.
• "Natalya" is a hair-raising autopsy of an ex-lover.
• And finally, in "Persimmons," a girl comes to terms as her community prepares her for sacrifice.
Delving into uncanny spaces and giving fangs, talons, and singular sharpness to the otherwise ordinary, awkward, and unmentionable, Mouth's surrealism is both unique and captivating. Experimenting with form and speculative elements, Puloma Ghosh reaches into otherworldly spaces while searching for answers to everyday struggles of isolation and ostracization, lust and longing, and complexities of the body.