If That's All There Is (Electric Literature's Recommended Reading)

3.2/5 ( ratings)

"“If That’s All There Is," is a story taken from Mona Awad's debut collection, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl. The narrator is the recipient of a dubious overture from her co-worker, Archibald, but the story becomes about so much more than the relationship. It is about the sometimes unfathomable insanity of attraction. It is about the daily, deadly concessions women so often make. That ruinous compulsion to accommodate. It is about the way the most unlikely person can have the power to make us, for a moment, feel at home in our own skin—even if, at the same time, they are contributing to our unraveling." - Laura van den Berg, Author of Find Me

About the Author: Mona Awad received her MFA in fiction from Brown University. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s, The Walrus, Joyland, Post Road, St. Petersburg Review, and many other journals. She is currently pursuing a PhD in creative writing and English literature at the University of Denver.

About the Guest Editor: Laura van den Berg was raised in Florida and earned her M.F.A. at Emerson College. Her first collection of stories, What The World Will Look Like When All The Water Leaves Us , was a Barnes & Noble "Discover Great New Writers" selection. Her second collection of stories, The Isle of Youth, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in November 2013, won the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters and The Bard Fiction Prize, and was named a "Best Book of 2013" by over a dozen venues, including NPR, The Boston Globe, and O, The Oprah Magazine. Both collections were shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Her first novel, Find Me, was published by FSG in February 2015.

About the Publisher: Electric Literature is an independent publisher amplifying the power of storytelling through digital innovation. Electric Literature’s weekly fiction magazine, Recommended Reading, invites established authors, indie presses, and literary magazines to recommended great fiction. Once a month we feature our own recommendation of original, previously unpublished fiction.