The Girl in the Flammable Skirt

Aimee Bender takes you on a wild and emotional ride with stories that are as resonant as they are magical. Whether you’re reading about a woman whose husband is undergoing reverse evolution or about the sisters with hands of fire and ice, no matter how exotic Bender’s premises might seem, there is always, at their core, something utterly human.

This was one of the books (along with Anthony Doerr’s The Shell Collector) that inspired me to pursue fiction writing rather than poetry.

For the longest time, poetry was my preferred genre, and while I had dabbled in writing fiction, I struggled. It wasn’t until reading The Girl in the Flammable Skirt near the end of my undergrad that I realized fiction doesn’t have to be straight realism—it can be magical, strange, symbolic, weird, fabulist, dreamlike.

Two of Bender’s stories that had the most impact on me were “The Rememberer,” where the narrator’s lover experiences reverse evolution,” and “Drunken… show more.

My father’s neurologist described Alzheimer’s as “a real weird city.” It was as apt a description as I’ve found. This collection of magical, strange, and hilarious short stories kept me company as I navigated the shifting landscape of Dad’s illness. At that time, I could not have found a better reflection of my own stew of emotions than the “reverse evolution” chronicled in the first story in the book. “The Rememberer” saved me. Bender’s graceful tale of the acceptance of inevitable loss is suffused with love, and the way her writing lets imagination spring the bonds of reality encouraged me… show more.