A01=Emily Mitchell
astonishment
Author_Emily Mitchell
bewilderment
Category=FB
Category=FBA
Category=FL
Category=FYB
connection
dark
disorienting
eerie
eq_anthologies-novellas-short-stories
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_nobargain
eq_science-fiction
fantastic
fiction
funny
haunting
imaginative
isolation
love
magical realism
near future
nonhuman
novella
relationships
science fiction
short stories
social change
speculative
surreal
technology
transcendence
uncanny
unexpected
weird
Product details
- ISBN 9780299354343
- Weight: 172g
- Dimensions: 140 x 216mm
- Publication Date: 04 Nov 2025
- Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Delightfully blending literary fiction with speculative genres, the stories in The Church of Divine Electricity somehow manage to feel as though they could take place today. In Emily Mitchell’s created worlds, as in our own, technology bewitches, especially with its ability to heighten both connections and isolation.
Whether being held by a giant and comforting machine, allowing micro-drones to record one’s every moment for a year to win prize money, or choosing self-mutilation in exchange for a bionic hand, these characters navigate technological and social change. The familiar can turn unrecognizable and disorienting—sometimes in a flash, sometimes gradually. Lyrical, haunting, and often funny, these stories ask us to consider what—and who—gets left out of a seemingly utopian future of technological advancements. Finely observed, thoughtful, and vivid, Mitchell’s stories get under your skin. It’s not that the best-laid plans could lead us astray—it’s that they may already have.
Whether being held by a giant and comforting machine, allowing micro-drones to record one’s every moment for a year to win prize money, or choosing self-mutilation in exchange for a bionic hand, these characters navigate technological and social change. The familiar can turn unrecognizable and disorienting—sometimes in a flash, sometimes gradually. Lyrical, haunting, and often funny, these stories ask us to consider what—and who—gets left out of a seemingly utopian future of technological advancements. Finely observed, thoughtful, and vivid, Mitchell’s stories get under your skin. It’s not that the best-laid plans could lead us astray—it’s that they may already have.
Emily Mitchell, associate professor of English at the University of Maryland, is the author of a collection of short stories, Viral, and a novel, The Last Summer of the World. Her fiction has appeared in Harper’s, Ploughshares, The Sun, and elsewhere; her nonfiction has been published in the New York Times, the New Statesman, and Guernica. She serves as fiction editor for the New England Review.
Emily Mitchell's website: https://www.emilymitchellwriter.com
Emily Mitchell's website: https://www.emilymitchellwriter.com
