Thanks for This Riot Stories

Winner of the Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in FictionThanks for This Riot explores the limits of kindness, the weight of being needed, and the fear of being misunderstood.A group counselor is taunted by a truth-divining piano bench, a voice actor shouts her abortion at the state capitol, a tired caregiver tangles with a pair of stand-up comics, a small-town newspaper office shelters an otherworldly tattletale, a backwoods acupuncturist leans on her least-exciting offspring, a girl in a strapless bra takes a vengeful go-kart ride, and a woman gets surgery to lower her expectations (she thinks it went “okay”). Grouped by types of riot—external riots, internal riots, and laugh riots—Thanks for This Riot is a poignant and mordantly funny collection with a distinctly feminist viewpoint.