DESPERATE BODIES

Pithy stories about young Black women run the gamut from tragic to comic and back again.

Ashley wants a friend. Janet wants a baby. The woman in “Tinder Date” wants a man, while the narrator of “The Long Sleep” just wants her mom to wake up and make dinner. Each of Mathis’ lead characters has wants and desires, and few of them are fulfilled. Their bodies are desperate, yes—but so are their minds and spirits. “I wondered if Dani knew I couldn’t resist her,” says Cath in “House Party,” hoping for her college roommate’s reciprocated desire. Some of these women are straight, some gay, some don’t care about labels; the important point is that their honest urges get flattened by other people’s agendas. In one of the best stories, “Parent-Teacher Conference,” Nia, a sex worker, has an unexpected encounter with a client right before a school meeting, a shock as she tries to plan her daughter Liv’s end-of-semester dinner of ribs, macaroni and cheese, and chocolate cake. Quite a few of these pieces include important scenes about food as solace, like the meal of skillet-fried chicken and collard greens Janet cooks for herself in “Precious” as it becomes clear her husband, Michael, has his own ideas about their relationship. Mathis’ forthright and frequently elegant prose never gets in the way of blood, amniotic fluid, half-eaten food, or even vermin any more than it skirts around the deepest pain and longings. What stands out in each story, long or short, is the feeling that the real story isn’t over. Whether the end is sad or fierce—and sometimes deliberately a bit fantastical—its protagonist has much more to say.

Compelling and realistic characters will linger in your consciousness long after you’ve finished the book.