The Office of Historical Corrections
Synopsis
'Sublime short stories of race, grief, and belonging . . . an extraordinary new collection'
New Yorker
'Evans’s new stories present rich plots reflecting on race relations, grief, and love'
New York Times, Editor’s Choice
‘Brilliant . . . These stories are sly and prescient, a nuanced reflection of the world we are living in’
Roxane Gay
Danielle Evans is widely acclaimed for her blisteringly smart voice and X-ray insights into complex human relationships. With The Office of Historical Corrections, Evans zooms in on particular moments and relationships in her characters’ lives in a way that allows them to speak to larger issues of race, culture, and history.
We meet Black and multi-racial characters who are experiencing the universal confusions of lust and love, and getting walloped by grief – all while exploring how history haunts us, personally and collectively. Ultimately, she provokes us to think about the truths of American history – about who gets to tell them, and the cost of setting the record straight.
In ‘Boys Go to Jupiter’ a white college student tries to reinvent herself after a photo of her in a Confederate flag bikini goes viral. In ‘Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain’ a photojournalist is forced to confront her own losses while attending an old friend’s unexpectedly dramatic wedding. And in the eye-opening title novella, a Black scholar from Washington DC is drawn into a complex historical mystery that spans generations and puts her job, her love life, and her oldest friendship at risk.
Details
Reviews
“With the seven brilliant stories in The Office of Historical Corrections, Danielle Evans demonstrates, once again, that she is the finest short story writer working today. These stories are sly and prescient, a nuanced reflection of the world we are living in . . . wickedly smart and haunting.”Roxane Gay
“Danielle Evans is a wonder . . . She writes about the stakes of contemporary life in a way that always feels so true and so right. You leave her stories feeling like you’ll miss those characters forever. She is a writer of the first order.”Brandon Taylor, author of Real Life
“Evans' prose presents something of a rarity in contemporary fiction: where sure and deft craft meet real feeling. Her stories grip and amuse, cutting to the essence of what might mean to be Black in America.”Caleb Azumah Nelson, author of Open Water
“A dazzling collection. Contemporary life in Danielle Evans's stories has a kind of incandescent and dangerous energy: even in moments of somberness or isolation, her characters crackle with heat, light, and self-awareness.”Kelly Link
