I Am the Ghost Here - by Kim Samek (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Twelve women confront the mounting existential terrors of modernity--climate change, unbridled capitalism and greed, an entertainment industry that will go to surreal lengths to stay relevant--in this debut story collection set in a slightly off-kilter version of reality.

A woman's limbs disappear into "the cloud" during wildfire-induced power outages. A lonely DoorDasher accidentally becomes the star of someone else's reality show, forced to resolve her fraught relationship with her immigrant mother for the narrative. Succumbing to a widely denied pandemic, a gymnastics coach must carry her heart around in a Mason jar, using her disability to become an influencer. Two chronically single, chronically ill people become soulmates, only to discover their meeting was algorithmically orchestrated by ad tech. Other dramas unfold as icebergs melt and island-sized trash heaps burn.

Threaded with sharp social commentary, these stories question the engineering of human connection through technology, social media, and reality television. Warm, endlessly strange, and filled with dark yet hopeful humor, I Am the Ghost Here casts familiar crises of contemporary life in a wholly unique light, offering a pathway towards our shared humanity even as reality comes crumbling down.

Review Quotes

"Like a season of Black Mirror, but less bleak and more melancholy, each story in this collection offers a door into an inventive new world, strange and familiar at the same time. Every page, every line offers possibility, surprise, humor or heartbreak. An exciting new voice."--Charles Yu, author of Interior Chinatown

"Beguiling and funny and desperately, delicately human. I found these stories as irresistible as a pack of time-traveling mints."--Ed Park, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Same Bed, Different Dreams

"I adored this collection of surreal stories, which feel both of-the-moment and timeless. Bizarre, very funny, and emotionally authentic, these stories pulse with pathos and surprising insights into what it feels like to be human. A vital addition to the canon of weird fiction."--Kate Folk, author of Sky Daddy

About the Author

Kim Samek is a half-Thai Emmy-nominated writer and television producer with credits including MTV's Catfish and PBS' WordGirl. She studied German Literature and creative writing at Stanford University. Her stories appear in Guernica, Ecotone, Electric Literature, The North American Review, The Chicago Quarterly Review, swamp pink, Gulf Coast, The Southern Humanities Review, The Threepenny Review, Story, and ZYZZYVA. Her short fiction has won a Pushcart Prize. A native of Seattle, she lives in Los Angeles.