May-Lan Tan

Shadows, doubles, and the ghosts of past and future lovers haunt these elegantly structured and often hallucinatory stories. The language is hypnotic, deadpan, intense; the sentences jewel-hard and sublime. This marks the debut of a stylish, exuberant new voice in modern fiction.

Things to Make and Break

"In these eleven stories, Tan explores the idea that every relationship between two people is actually a relationship between three people: each relationship encompasses and relies upon an interstitial presence--another person, a former self, a future lover. Within this loose thematic constraint, a series of related worlds unspool. Teenagers in a band betray each other. A woman gets so obsessed with photos of her boyfriend's ex that she eventually contrives a way to meet her. A woman has a relationship with her sister's husband's brother that darkly, secretly parallels her sister's happy marriage. Each character is a mirror, double or proxy of someone else, hinting at the possibility that we seek out the same person in different bodies and churn through cycles of self-invention/-annihilation." --

Things to make and break

SHORTLISTED FOR THE GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD A motorcycle courier finds a cache of nude photos in her boyfriend's desk. The daughter of East German emigrants encounters her doppelgänger, who has crossed another cultural divide. Twin brothers fall for the same girl. When a stripper receives an enigmatic proposal from a client, she accepts, ignorant of its terms. Shadows, doubles, and the ghosts of past and future lovers haunt these elegantly structured and often hallucinatory stories. The language is hypnotic, deadpan, intense; the sentences jewel-hard and sublime. Things to Make and Break is the work of a stylish, exuberant new voice in modern fiction. 'Quite dazzling' TLS

These eleven short fictions evoke the microcosmic worlds every human relationship contains. A woman is captivated by the stories her boyfriend tells about his exes. A faltering artist goes on a date with a married couple. Twin brothers work out their rivalry via the girl next door. In every one of these tales, we meet indelibly real and unforgettable people, a cast of rebels and dreamers trying to transform themselves, forge new destinies, or simply make the moment last.

May-Lan Tan

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