As we discovered in Vampires in the Lemon Grove,, Karen Russell has a gift for creating outlandish predicaments that uncannily mirror our inner lives, and she proves it again in these eight unforgettable stories. In "Bog Girl," a man falls in love with a 2,000-year-old girl that he's extracted from a mass of peat in a Northern European bog, while in "The Prospectors," two opportunistic young women fleeing the Great Depression strike out for new territory, and find themselves fighting for their lives. And in the hilarious title story, a new mother desperate to ensure her infant's safety strikes a deal with the devil as comic as it is bizarre.

"Russell is one of the most original American authors working today…. [This book] is a thing of beauty, a stunning collection from one of the most brilliant literary minds of her generation."—NPR