The characters in the stories of People Like You, I love them for what they are, and I love them for what they were over the course of twenty or thirty or forty rewrites, and I love all the ways I hated them when I couldn't figure them out.Īnd now here I am mixing memory and music and story and character in one big knotted up mess. Like a tea that is stronger the longer it steeps. The way music works in my brain has something to do with memory. In her own words, here is Margaret Malone's Book Notes music playlist for her short story collection People Like You: Stream a playlist of these songs at Spotify. The biggest mouth-to-mouth resuscitation of storytelling I've seen in years.' Her writing is brilliantly urgent and alive. The stories in Margaret Malone's collection People Like You will blow your mind, steal your heart, and leave your DNA rearranged.

'This is the book I am personally going to put into peoples' hands the moment it gets born. Margaret Malone's short fiction collection People Like You is a mesmerizing debut, filled with characters whose hardscrabble lives will haunt you long after you finish their stories. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Jesmyn Ward, Heidi Julavits, Hari Kunzru, and many others. Previous contributors include Bret Easton Ellis, Kate Christensen, Kevin Brockmeier, T.C. In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.

People Like You by Margaret Malone