Radium Girl

Sofi Papamarko’s collection of short stories, Radium Girl, is a grab bag of serious fun, serious situations, and startling revelations. Many of these stories could have easily strayed into cliché, as they dabble on the edge of domestic situations we will all find familiar but manage to keep their crisp edge of surprise.

This is a book to scoop up for a flight or long bus ride, where you might not have the prolonged attention span needed for a heftier tome. Each story averages about eight pages and toggles between gripping and charming. The standouts are “Margie & Lu,” conjoined twins who haven’t quite worked out the details of navigating intimate affairs. “The Pollinators,” starts with a dinner party discussion on global annihilation but is actually about infertility and the death of a marriage. “Something to Cry About,” crackles with tension as Marcus, a young boy, observes his family who are locked in a bomb shelter after a supposed nuclear attack.

All these stories are fresh and intriguing. Often they lead you in one direction until just a few mere sentences from the end when something else entirely is revealed. Such as in “White Cake,” where a frumpy lacklustre woman decides maybe it’s time her world took a different and more exciting course.

I look forward to Papamarko’s work in the future. I am sure it will continue to surprise.