“Graves is surely the love child of Lena Dunham and Sheila Heti — so much wit and charm, served with a welter of spiking, surprising, disorienting and distilled insight. These stories are saturated with the present moment.”

So writes Lisa Moore, a professor of creative writing in the Department of English at Memorial, of Allison Graves’ debut collection of short fiction titled Soft Serve.

Whether through encounters in retail and fast-food chains on highways and dating apps, the characters in this collection wander the non-places of modern life.

The stories connect readers to spaces that ultimately make people feel lost — zones for reconsideration. Mining the confusion and boredom of the everyday, Ms. Graves’s fiction documents the emotional experiences and disillusionment of middle-class millenials seeking meaning in a life they find both ordinary and isolating.

Soft Serve is the January/February Coast Lines book club selection. Join Memorial’s book club here.

Background

Ms. Graves holds a master of arts degree in creative writing from Memorial University.

Her fiction won Room magazine’s annual fiction contest and a Newfoundland Arts and Letters Award. She is the fiction editor at Riddle Fence.

Soft Serve is published by Breakwater Books.