Disasters in the First World

Olivia Clare’s delightfully strange and tender debut traces the intersection of larger-than-life forces—natural and otherwise—in our daily lives. From siblings whose relationship is as fragile as glass, to a woman grappling with both an emotional and physical drought, to a superstitious spouse fearful of misfortune, Disasters in the First World explores the real and the fantastical, environmental and man-made calamities, and the human need to comprehend the possible, the probable, the unknown.

Deeply nimble and perceptive, Clare delves into the tumultuous depths of human emotion as well as the messiness of relationships, unmasking the most revealing moments of connection—no matter how fleeting. In “Pittsburgh in Copenhagen,” a man and a woman confront infidelity and estrangement as they share one last night together. “Pétur” tells the tale of a son who takes his mother on an Icelandic vacation only to be trapped together in close quarters by a volcanic eruption. “Rusalka’s Long Legs” follows a young girl’s treacherously long walk through the woods with her unpredictable mother. And in “The Visigoths,” an older sister finds a way to break through to her brother who struggles to fit in.

With outstanding precision and grace, the thirteen stories in this collection uncover truths beneath both actual and imagined disasters. They each exist as exquisite and mysterious universes—and through their intimate, profoundly moving worlds, Clare’s clarity of voice rises as a distinctive and masterful new talent.

Olivia Clare’s fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, Granta, n+1, Boston Review, Kenyon Review, among other publications, and she is the author of a book of poems, The 26-Hour Day. She holds master’s degrees from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the University of Southern California, and she was recently a Black Mountain Institute Ph.D. Fellow at University of Nevada. She teaches creative writing at Sam Houston State University.