Exit Zero - by Marie-Helene Bertino (Paperback)

About the Book

"Twelve delightfully strange, haunting stories from the acclaimed, oracular author of Beautyland"--

Book Synopsis

A Best Book of the Year - Boston Globe - Literary Hub - Electric Literature

"[Marie-Helene] Bertino blurs the line between writer and magician . . . Dazzling." --Molly Young, The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)

Electric Literature's Best Short Story Collection of 2025
A Must-Read: The New York Times Book Review, Bustle, Harper's Bazaar, Esquire, Chicago Review of Books, Our Culture, Literary Hub, Book Riot
Long-listed for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize
Long-listed for the Story Prize
Winner of a PEN/O. Henry Prize: "Exit Zero"
Included in The Best American Short Stories: "Viola in Midwinter"

Twelve delightfully strange, haunting stories from the acclaimed, oracular author of Beautyland.

Death-shaped entities--with all of their humor and strangeness-- haunt the twelve stories in Exit Zero. Vampires, ghost girls, fathers, blank spaces, day-old peaches, and famous paintings all pierce through their world into ours, reminding us to pay attention! and look alive! and offering many other flashes of wisdom from the oracle and author of Beautyland, Marie-Helene Bertino.

Review Quotes

"My favorite [story] collection of 2025 . . . Bertino's writing here is electric and propulsive, while her command of genre is masterful: she paces her stories like a thriller, plays with language like a poet, and conjures worlds like Borges."
--Adam Morgan, Esquire

"Marie-Helene Bertino's work is unmistakable for its intelligent charm and startling originality . . . In Exit Zero, [our] favorite collection of the year, Bertino asks her readers to suspend their disbelief and step into a brighter, if sideways, world. We suggest you do."
--Halimah Marcus, Electric Literature

"[Exit Zero will] surprise you. And make you laugh. And sometimes devastate you. Sometimes all of the above . . . Everything [Bertino] writes is covered in a slight dusting of magic."
--Charles Yu, Bomb

"There are original stories, there are unique sto-ries, and then there are Marie-Helene Bertino stories . . . [Exit Zero] contains a dozen gems . . . A must-read collection."
--Gabino Iglesias, Locus

"Charming and strange . . . Luminous tales of haunting absurdity."
--Michael Welch, Chicago Review of Books

"Revelatory . . . The addition of a little magic in each story belies that these are stories about absences, separations, loneliness, and uncertainty. Readers of all kinds will find something to cherish among these gems."
--Jeff O'Neal, Book Riot

"Stunning . . . The best of these stories tap into the same heartfelt sense of isolation that Bertino's Beautyland did. . . When Exit Zero is humming, it turns that sense of isolation into something hallucinatory, sad, and beatific."
--Tobias Carroll, Reactor

"Exit Zero, like all of Marie-Helene Bertino's fiction, climb[s] to the rarest heights by combining intuition with emotional wisdom."
--The Brooklyn Rail

"Exit Zero reveals everyday instances of magic via an expert blend of humor and melancholy."
--Greta Rainbow, Bustle

"[Exit Zero cuts] at the core of what it means to be alive."
--Chelsey Sanchez, Harper's Bazaar

"Bertino's way of looking at the world continues to dazzle."
--Sam Franzini, Our Culture

"With winsome wildness capturing the incapturable, Bertino offers up marvels on every page."
--Annie Bostrom, Booklist

"Stories that slide into the magical while staying determinedly real . . . Bertino's characters . . . will remind us of our neighbors, our friends, even ourselves as we navigate their worlds in Bertino's confident hands. Ardently whimsical, yet never centerless."
--Kirkus Reviews

"There's a Denis Johnsonesque deadpan lurking in [Exit Zero]. And yet the book also has a spontaneous and intense energy . . . You feel changed . . . intoxicated, as if you expect something very different from reality after having tasted Bertino's version."
--Max Winter, On the Seawall

"[A] potent and darkly funny collection . . . driven by energetic pacing, quick wit, and surprising twists. Bertino once again displays her formidable talent for the uncanny."
--Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Marie-Helene Bertino is the author of Beautyland, Parakeet, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas, and the story collection Safe as Houses. She was the 2017 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Fellow in Cork, Ireland. She has received the PEN/O. Henry Award, the Pushcart Prize, the Iowa Short Fiction Award, the Mississippi Review Fiction Prize, and fellowships from MacDowell Colony, Sewanee Writers Conference, and New York City's Center for Fiction, and her work has twice been featured on NPR's Selected Shorts.