Hum
Stories
By Michelle Richmond; Foreword by Rikki Ducornet
University of Alabama Press, Fiction Collective 2
A new collection of stories by bestselling author Michelle Richmond, Hum presents a cautionary political fable, a celebration of the complexities of marriage, and a meditation on modern-day alienation.
Thirteen years after the publication of her first story collection, The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress, New York Times bestselling author Michelle Richmond returns with Hum, a collection of ten stories that examine love, lust, and loyalty from surprising angles.
In “Hum,” a young couple that is paid to live in a house filled with surveillance equipment becomes “quietly lost to each other,” as the wife’s infatuation with the subject of their surveillance turns to obsession. In “Medicine,” a woman grieving over the death of her sister finds her calling as a manual medical caregiver. In “Boulevard,” a couple who has been trying to have a child for seven years finds themselves in an unnamed country at the height of a revolution, summoned there by the enigmatic H. “Scales,” the story of a woman who falls in love with a man whose body is covered with scales, parses the intersection of pain and pleasure. The narrator of “Lake” must choose whether to walk in the footsteps of her famous grandfather, The Great Amphibian, who disappeared while performing a feat of daring in Lake Michigan. What does it mean to be heroic? How much should one sacrifice in the name of love? These questions and more are explored with tenderness, wit, and unerring precision in Hum.
Thirteen years after the publication of her first story collection, The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress, New York Times bestselling author Michelle Richmond returns with Hum, a collection of ten stories that examine love, lust, and loyalty from surprising angles.
In “Hum,” a young couple that is paid to live in a house filled with surveillance equipment becomes “quietly lost to each other,” as the wife’s infatuation with the subject of their surveillance turns to obsession. In “Medicine,” a woman grieving over the death of her sister finds her calling as a manual medical caregiver. In “Boulevard,” a couple who has been trying to have a child for seven years finds themselves in an unnamed country at the height of a revolution, summoned there by the enigmatic H. “Scales,” the story of a woman who falls in love with a man whose body is covered with scales, parses the intersection of pain and pleasure. The narrator of “Lake” must choose whether to walk in the footsteps of her famous grandfather, The Great Amphibian, who disappeared while performing a feat of daring in Lake Michigan. What does it mean to be heroic? How much should one sacrifice in the name of love? These questions and more are explored with tenderness, wit, and unerring precision in Hum.
These stories are mesmerizing, sensual (and often wonderfully sexual), beautifully imagined tales that lead us from the familiar to the intimately strange. Richmond writes as if she lives comfortably in this world and another dreamy, concurrent dimension that is achingly just beyond our ken.’—Brad Watson, author of Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives
Michelle Richmond’s extraordinary imagination leads readers into grounded yet fantastic worlds in which men walk on water, a woman marries a scaled sea creature, and couples take journeys that mirror their interior life. Richmond writes elegantly and convincingly from the point of view of either gender—a feat unto itself. And her characters—ranging from a lawyer who defends murderers to enigmatic diplomats—reveal her wide and expansive mind. Hum is a collection not to be missed.’ —Thaisa Frank, author of Heidegger’s Glasses and Enchantment
Michelle Richmond is the author of the award-winning story collection The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress, the novels Dream of the Blue Room and No One You Know, and the New York Times and international bestseller The Year of Fog. Her new novel, Golden State, will be published by Bantam in 2014.
Foreword by Rikki Ducornet
- Hum
- Medicine
- Lake
- Hero
- Scales
- Honeymoon
- Hospitality
- Love
- Travel
- Boulevard
Acknowledgments
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