Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil

Strange, intimate, haunted, and hungry--Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil is an intoxicating and surreal fiction debut by award-winning author Ananda Lima.

"Remarkable and memorable." --OLIVIE BLAKE - "An astounding new voice." --ERIC LaROCCA - "I love it so much." --KELLY LINK - "Trippy, eerie, wry, and always profound." --JOHN KEENE - "Incredible. Truly wondrous." --KEVIN WILSON - "Heart-wrenching and wickedly funny." --GWEN KIRBY - "Propulsive, uncanny, and expertly built." --JULIA FINE

At a Halloween party in 1999, a writer slept with the devil. She sees him again and again throughout her life and she writes stories for him about things that are both impossible and true.

Lima lures readers into surreal pockets of the United States and Brazil where they'll find bite-size Americans in vending machines and the ghosts of people who are not dead. Once there, she speaks to modern Brazilian-American immigrant experiences-of ambition, fear, longing, and belonging--and reveals the porousness of storytelling and of the places we call home.

With humor, an exquisite imagination, and a voice praised as "singular and wise and fresh" (Cathy Park Hong), Lima joins the literary lineage of Bulgakov and Lispector and the company of writers today like Ted Chiang, Carmen Maria Machado, and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.

Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil includes: "Rapture," "Ghost Story," "Tropicália," "Antropógaga," "Idle Hands," "Rent," "Porcelain," "Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory," and "Hasselblad."

A great next read for fans of Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body and Other Parties and V. E. Schwab's The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.

Recommended reading by Chicago Review of Books, Electric Literature, The Kenyon Review, and more!

BUY THE BOOK

192 pages

Average rating: 6.33

3 RATINGS

|

2 REVIEWS

Community Reviews

Zookreeper
Jul 31, 2024
6/10 stars
Audiobook: In listening instead of reading, I wasn't always sure if I was in a story or in the narrative. I think I confused a story with the narrative at one point toward the middle. It was an interesting concept, for sure.
Chellemorgan
Jul 12, 2024
7/10 stars
I liked the concept and was immediately interested in the beginning. I was loving it. It was going to be a five star read for me. At some point along the way I lost a little bit of interest and occasionally felt confused. Overall, I still really enjoyed it!

See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.

More books by this author