Hellgoing

The power of excellent Twitterer (and writer, doye) Lynn Coady compels you, despite it being, like, 2am, to keep reading another of the addictive stories in Hellgoing. In “The Natural Elements,” Cal can’t connect with his irritating (and familiar, at least to me) daughter, and feels too much---for his sad-sack tenant, for his family, for women everywhere---but ends up paralyzed by his seemingly irrelevant masculinity. In “Mr. Hope,” the titular teacher shoots straight with a promising (maybe?) student who just shuts down out of sheer awkward teendom and shitty circumstance. Characters smash together, get confused and each of the eight stories serve as a reminder that people are extremely interesting, and fucked up in their own way. Like you needed reminding.