House Gone Quiet, Kelsey Norris
House Gone Quiet, Kelsey Norris
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

House Gone Quiet
Stories

Author: Kelsey Norris

Narrator: James Fouhey, Jade Wheeler, Machelle Williams, Kimberly Woods

Unabridged: 6 hr 17 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/17/2023


Synopsis

Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence | Named a Best Book of 2023 by Library Journal and Debutiful

An eerie, irresistible debut story collection about the bonds and bounds of community and what it means to call a place home, “perfect for readers of Margaret Atwood and Carmen Maria Machado” (Booklist).

“A writer to watch if there ever was one.” —Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Chain-Gang All-Stars

“Kelsey Norris’s carefully and beautifully crafted tales left me laughing, gasping, and completely enthralled.” —Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

A group of women contemplate violence after they’re sent into foreign territory to make husbands of the enemy. A support network of traumatized joggers meets to discuss the bodies they’ve found on their runs. And a town replaces its Confederate monument with a rotating cast of local residents. Slippery but muscular, sly but electric, this stunning debut collection moves from horror to magical realism to satire with total authority. In these stories, characters build and remake their sense of home, be it with one another or within themselves.

As in the very best collections, each of these stories is a world all its own, with a novel’s emotional heft and a poem’s laser focus on the most achingly resonant details of its characters’ lives. Captivating from start to finish, House Gone Quiet announces the arrival of a thrilling literary talent.

About Kelsey Norris

Kelsey Norris is a writer and editor from Alabama. She earned an MFA from Vanderbilt University and has worked as a teacher in rural Namibia, a school librarian, and a bookseller. Her work has been published in Kenyon Review, Black Warrior Review, and Oxford American, among others. She is currently based in Washington, DC. Find more at KelseyNorris.com.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Emily on June 15, 2023

Wow! I don't often read short story collections, but this is the kind of book that reminds me why I should. Falls right up there with The Secret Lives of Church Ladies and Heads of the Colored People for me, though this is a different kind of collection--in each story Norris weaves a new little worl......more

Goodreads review by Régine on October 31, 2023

Perfect amount of uncanny and wholesomeness.......more

Goodreads review by Janalyn, the blind reviewer on October 17, 2023

From the first story to the last story I thought they were all interesting and some were even overwhelmingly funny from the support group to replacing the racist statue with town people There’s even one where the mayor tells the towns people they now can go without clothing and I don’t know if peopl......more

Goodreads review by Jessica on January 07, 2024

Often, when reading short story collections, you go in assuming that there will be some stronger stories than others, but it’s a great way to really get introduced to a new writer (or writers, if it’s a collection). Kelsey Norris’ House Gone Quiet has no stragglers: these are all well worth reading.......more

Goodreads review by Roslyn on August 17, 2023

I love a good short story collection and this one did not disappoint. It was just as good or better than the stories in The Secret Lives of Church Ladies-and I still remember all of the stories in that collection. The best one to me was "SuchGreat Height and Consequence" (about the town who takes do......more


Quotes

"Norris’s bewitching prose is matched by the performances of Jade Wheeler, Machelle Williams, Kimberly Woods, and James Fouhey, who take turns narrating the stories. Several stories have a folkloric quality that makes them perfect for audio, lulling listeners into a story time space...Strong writing and consistently skillful performances make this a must-buy for any audio fiction collection."