Book Review: "Out There" by Kate Folk

I was recently asked a great question by a person under 21. The question was: how do you get better at reading? Here's the answer: read stuff you enjoy and allow it to challenge you. Have your mind open to new ideas and even if you're in a 'slump', pick up a short story or a poetry anthology. Anyways, I'm not in a 'slump' but I am reading a short story anthology called Out There. An absurdist collection by Kate Folk, it has some contemporary themes that really resonate with our own day. Some stories may have been better than others, but overall I can say this was a positive reading experience.

The title story deals with a plot that I think is very much like an episode of Black Mirror and could be a real success if the show made it into an episode (because let's fact it, the last season was a bit on the bland side apart from the episode with the video game). A woman in San Francisco is trying to use dating apps but is plagued by 'blots' which are beautiful, strange men who are designed to steal the data of women they interact with. Modern romance is being shunned for any form of actual connection. She turns between the two sides of the argument: one where she wants to actually feel something and the other where she just needs some kind of validation in her life. There's another story in here where we get the side of a 'blot'. For some reason the term 'blot' reminds me of the ink blot test, where you project your own psyche on to a blank slate. It feels like there's tons of extended metaphors in this piece which also makes it one of the stand-out stories in the collection.

I also enjoyed a story called The Bone Ward which is about a hospital ward that treats a mysterious 'bone melting disorder'. Again, this story deals with connection and how much humans are willing to sacrifice to make it genuine. Honestly, I'm not going to say too much about the plot of this story because everything feels like it might give the game away. So, I'm going to write about the one thing I find fascinating about the way the writer pens the stories: atmosphere. There's a lot of atmosphere and of course, it is very dystopian. However, the atmosphere never feels like it's yet another spin-off of 1984. Instead, it feels almost like it's happening now. Like, right now. That's what puts us on edge as readers. It seems a bit too close, venturing into the 'uncanny valley' of the situation.

Another story, Moist House, really digs deep into the sickening nature of dystopia. Kate Folk writes a story about Karl who is confused about why a house would need 'moisture'. He's given a bucket of lotion and told to apply it to the house at given times. Honestly, at this point, I would just run for it. But it looks like the author is trying to tell us something quite deep about our own lives. Not just in the sense that humans find value in making a house a home, but the author also explores how homes can go from being a safe place for us to live in to becoming our own prisons in times of desperation. This wavering definitely scares the reader in submitting to the strong atmosphere. But it also mirrors our own collective psychology - I mean especially during the pandemic.

I also enjoyed stories like The House's Beating Heart and The Scale Model of Gull Point which definitely feel like really dark episodes of Black Mirror. Each of the stories has an existential point to them where humans are always seeking something such as validation or safety. It is presented as an irony in our modern times where we have everything except for actual security and yet, because of all the social media we have - we are hyper-aware of our situation in comparison to those of others. We recognise that normal people are not gifted the same security as those who are rich and powerful. These stories definitely explore that problem so well.

All in all, I thought this anthology was incredible. Yes, there are some stories within that perhaps are not as great as others, but I haven't included those because it's not fair to judge an author by one or two side-steps if most of the collection is great. I hope you too come around to reading this anthology because if you don't, you're honestly missing out on something fantastic.