Watchlist Countdown, Day 15: “The Entire Predicament” by Lucy Corin

     My head hovers over the floor, and my hair dangles, and my foot teeters near my ear, and my backside is exposed. I’m separated. I’m gagged, and behind my gag I can’t feel my voice. Homebound, on my very own threshold, I am of two minds or more about most things.

       from “The Entire Predicament” by Lucy Corin

The housewife who narrates Lucy Corin’s short story in the Watchlist anthology is literally homebound, and she is indeed in a predicament. Though Corin has published two short story collections (The Entire Predicament and One Hundred Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses) and a novel (Everyday Psychokillers: A History for Girls), this was my first encounter with her work on the page. Based on this story, it won’t be my last. Her entry to the Watchlist lineup is thrilling, disturbing, mysterious, kinky and surreal. It’s best summed up in this sentence which comes near the end of “The Entire Predicament”: “There is simply no end to the suspense when one becomes one's own psychic landscape.”

Watchlist: 32 Short Stories by Persons of Interest, edited by Bryan Hurt, will be published by O/R Books on May 21.  The “persons of interest” contributing short stories to the anthology include Etgar Keret, Robert Coover, Aimee Bender, Jim Shepard, Alissa Nutting, Charles Yu, Cory Doctorow, David Abrams, Randa Jarrar, Katherine Karlin, Miracle Jones, Mark Irwin, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Dale Peck, Bonnie Nadzam, Lucy Corin, Chika Unigwe, Paul Di Filippo, Lincoln Michel, Dana Johnson, Mark Chiusano, Juan Pablo Villalobos, Chanelle Benz, Sean Bernard, Kelly Luce, Zhang Ran, Miles Klee, Carmen Maria Machado, Steven Hayward, Deji Bryce Olukotun, Alexis Landau and Bryan Hurt.

Pre-order your copy here