Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids - by Leyna Krow (Paperback)

About the Book

"The women of this beguiling, darkly fabulist, new story collection grapple with the question "What do we owe our family and friends in times of wild uncertainty?" as they strive to be good mothers, daughters, sisters, grandmothers, wives, and companions in a world that is constantly shifting around them"--

Book Synopsis

"These gripping, magical tales span time travel, portals, menacing butterflies, and more. A can't-miss meditation on families and survival."
--People

"A gorgeous book that also serves as a series of unanswerable, probing questions: How did we get here? How will we move forward? Can we still love, despite the wreckage? This is devastating work, and I mean that as a compliment. Very rarely have I come across a set of stories so genuinely moving. A searing collection that attempts to place the world delicately in our fumbling, undeserving hands." --Kristen Arnett, New York Times bestselling author of Mostly Dead Things and With Teeth

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2025: Lit Hub, The Millions

What do we owe our family and friends in times of wild uncertainty?

That's the question the women of Leyna Krow's beguiling, darkly fabulist story collection grapple with as they strive to be good mothers, daughters, sisters, grandmothers, wives, and companions in a world that is constantly shifting around them. Set in the Pacific Northwest, these stories blend high concept magic with the sometimes subtle, other times glaring, realities of climate change.

As protagonists contend with doppelgänger babies, hordes of time travelers, mysterious portals, and supernatural siblings, there lurks in the background the effects of the region's rapidly shifting environment. There are wildfires, wind storms, unrelenting heat, disrupted butterfly migration patterns, a new plague, and a catastrophe on the slopes of Mount Rainier that reverberates through three generations of a single family over the course of a half dozen linked stories.

With Krow's signature blend of sardonic whimsy and unsettling insight, Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids imagines the rules to be broken, choices to be made, and even crimes to be had for the sake of the people, and places, we love.

Review Quotes

Praise for Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids

"These gripping, magical tales span time travel, portals, menacing butterflies, and more. A can't-miss meditation on families and survival."
--People

"Sinkhole grapples with the changing nature of the land we live upon, along with the everlasting urge to be in relation with one another, treating that desire as imperative and necessary even in the face of our planet's decay. Each story is satisfying in its own right and intrinsic to the collection as a whole: at times speculative, at times starkly realistic, the world heats and floods cascade, and still the beating hearts of humanity continue to hope and fear and dream and love and love and love."
--Lit Hub, "Most Anticipated Books of 2025"

"In her second collection of short fiction, Krow amplifies surreal elements as she tells stories of ordinary lives. Her characters grapple with deadly viruses, climate change, and disasters of the Anthropocene's wilderness."
--The Millions, "Most Anticipated: The Great 2025 Winter Book Preview"

"A dazzling, vivid collection. . . . Krow expertly threads together a handful of elements: magical or absurd developments, incisive snapshots of familial loves and fears, and haunting reflections on climate change disasters. . . . Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids is highly recommended."
--Locus magazine

"Sinkhole perfectly captures the struggle to face the void we appear to be staring down each day as we plunge further into the climate crisis, and does it all while leaving us with a lasting feeling of hope and promise."
--Chicago Review of Books

"Krow weaves an ornate tapestry of tales. . . . Amid all the otherworldly phenomena around them, climate change creeps up on the characters in Krow's stories in different ways. . . . While the fabulous scenarios Krow creates in Sinkhole and Other Inexplicable Voids are truly far-fetched, there are still layers of truth buried deep within."
--The Inlander

"A distressed graduate student tries to warn her community about an impending mudslide. A mother creates a bond with her new child after he appears out of thin air. A scourge of butterflies threatens to destroy the ecosystem of a town even as it unites a grudging teenager and a local scientist. In these surreal stories, Krow imagines families facing both environmental collapse and the necessity of caring for one another in the most desperate times."
--Alta

"Leyna Krow's Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids is a stunning collection that transforms the mundane into the magical. Each story brims with wonder and the surreal, pushing the boundaries of reality while plunging the reader deep into human emotions. Krow, a masterful storyteller, captures the bizarre and beautiful in equal measure, making this collection both riveting and unforgettable. Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids is a dazzling testament to Krow's talent, offering readers not just a captivating journey into the unknown, but a brilliant return to our everyday lives forever marked by what we had witnessed."
--Morgan Talty, national bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez and Fire Exit: A Novel

"A gorgeous book that also serves as a series of unanswerable, probing questions: How did we get here? How will we move forward? Can we still love, despite the wreckage? This is devastating work, and I mean that as a compliment. Very rarely have I come across a set of stories so genuinely moving. A searing collection that attempts to place the world delicately in our fumbling, undeserving hands."
--Kristen Arnett, New York Times bestselling author of Mostly Dead Things and With Teeth

"This book doesn't just entertain--it explodes. Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids balances unearthly happenings with those concretely upon us. Krow deftly pulls readers into her tilted universe through the veneer of domesticity. Once there, we are haunted by something far more absurd than babies who become men in nine weeks and supplements that turn women into werewolves--a natural world that cries for our attention and goes unheard. Krow writes with both a masterful weirdness and the wise compassion of a human who loves our beautiful Earth."
--Emily Habeck, national bestselling author of Shark Heart: A Love Story

"Leyna Krow's Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids is beguiling and beautiful, funny and poignant, and mesmerizing at every turn. These strange stories have a delightful wildness about them: they turn our everyday world askew so as to reveal complicated truths beneath the surface. Leyna Krow is the perfect storyteller for this moment, for she so deftly captures the brutality and absurdity of living in what often feels like the end of the world."
--Edan Lepucki, New York Times bestselling author of California

"In this trenchant collection from Krow, uncanny moments punctuate the characters' day-to-day realities. . . . In 'A Plan to Save Us All, ' a series of time travelers descend upon a Pacific Northwest suburb to warn residents of a deadly pathogen that will wipe them all out, but the time travelers turn out to be more interested in getting laid than stopping the virus, and the narrator has sex with many of them. In 'Ultraboost Supplements for Good Health, ' a group of women agree to test a vitamin one of them has developed, causing them to turn on their husbands, menstruate uncontrollably, and possibly turn into werewolves. Krow's bracing and curious stories reveal what gets lost in the quest for perfection."
--Publishers Weekly

"Krow explores forest fires, volcanoes, time travel, and the lives of octopuses with verve and wit. . . . Even in the midst of familial or environmental tragedies, Krow's prose maintains a playful spirit."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Sinkhole and Other Inexplicable Voids combine magical powers, enchanting worlds that determine the fates of its characters, all while dealing with bigger themes and issues."
--The Spokesman-Review

About the Author

Leyna Krow is the author of the novel Fire Season, which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and the short story collection I'm Fine, But You Appear to Be Sinking, which was a Believer Book Award finalist. She lives in Spokane, Washington, with her husband and two children.