“Out There is for readers who consider body horror to be a love language.”
-The New York Times Book Review
“A bold, exhilarating display of talent.”
-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A wonderful absurdist collection that explores the vagaries of human connections . . . Folk impresses with her imagination as well as her insights.”
-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Tightly constructed and spectacularly mind-bending [stories] ingeniously pair everyday challenges and outlandish predicaments, ranging from hilarious to terrifying.”
-Booklist (starred review)
“One could fancy Kate Folk as the literary love child of Kafka and Camus and Bradbury, if Kafka and Camus and Bradbury were penning episodes of Black Mirror, but that still wouldn’t capture the blazing originality and exhilarating weirdness of her writing. From the moment you read these wondrously perverse, often creepy and hilarious, and always sneakily heartbreaking tales, you’ll know you’re in the presence of a singularly brilliant vision.”
-Chang-Rae Lee, author of My Year Abroad
“An assortment of stories so sharp and ingenious you may cut yourself on them while reading, like a drawer full of the most beautiful knives—Kate Folk’s Out There goes onto my shelf of favorite collections.”
-Kelly Link, author of Get In Trouble
“Fifteen extraordinary through-the-looking-glass tales, containing locked rooms, demanding houses, embodied Russian bots, revolution, and relationships—all delivered with a side of menace. . . Kate Folk is a dazzling talent.”
-Karen Joy Fowler, New York Times bestselling author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“Wry, riveting, and ambitious, Out There is one of those rare collections that manage to be both brilliantly inventive and emotionally resonant. . . Full of unforgettable voices and gleeful, exacting prose, this is a sharp and stylish debut from a wildly gifted writer.”
-Kimberly King Parsons, author of the National Book Award nominated Black Light
"The lucid, unsettling landscapes in Out There bring our own world into chilly focus through an exquisitely distorted lens. Each one of these amazing stories is a masterclass in eeriness and perception. Kate Folk's imagination is on fire."
-Ayşegül Savaş, author of White on White