A Small Apocalypse is a collection of short stories, many of them with interweaving characters, exploring both uncanny situations and everyday queerness. Memorable individual stories tell tales of people turning into reptiles and tragedy at Disney World, whilst a group of queer friends in Florida form the basis of many of the stories, exploring ghosts and alienation and a dead flamingo. Themes that run throughout the collection are swampy Florida, Asian American experience, queerness, and unsettling moments.
As someone who isn’t always a huge fan of short story collections, I was drawn to the blurb of this one, particularly the queerness and mention of something bad happening at Disney World, and I’m so glad I was. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed both the standalone stories and the ones which featured recurring characters, and the two types of story interweave in the book like you never know what might recur and what won’t, which I found an extension of the slightly unsettling vibe of some of the stories. I did love the Disney theme park story, both in its execution and in the story it tells, and I also really liked a lot of the more mundane stories that focused on character, relationships, and place, that place mostly being Florida. I appreciated how much even the interconnected stories were very different, offering some building blocks from other stories but also being their own thing.
If you’re looking for short stories that come together as a collection, that explore queerness, race, place, relationships, and fears in ways that are both everyday and weird, then A Small Apocalypse is well worth a read. It made me feel refreshed by the idea of short stories and what it means to read a collection of them by an author.
Fiendfully Reading 
You must be logged in to post a comment.