“Kink” ed. by R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell
February 1, 2021
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Kink by R. O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell, Garth Greenwell, and R. O. Kwon
Kink was the winter 2021 LARB Book Club pick. To join the Book Club, where we put you in conversation with editors and members and send a copy of the selected title to your door, become a LARB Friend member today.
“Bless Kink for opening up the spaces between all binaries, for daring to hold open desire between bodies on the brink of ecstasy. Between pleasure and pain, between hunger and thirst, between power and surrender, these stories will remind you how desire let loose can write us back to life. A pure erotic fury. An unapologetic delight brought to the cusp of trembling." —Lidia Yuknavitch, bestselling author of Verge and The Book of Joan
A groundbreaking anthology of literary short fiction, KINK (Simon & Schuster; February 9, 2021), is edited by lauded writers R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell and featuring previously and never-before published works by a who’s who cast of contributors including Roxane Gay, Alexander Chee, Brandon Taylor, Carmen Maria Machado, Kim Fu, Callum Angus, Vanessa Clark, Melissa Febos, Zeyn Joukhadar, Chris Kraus, Peter Mountford, Larissa Pham, and Cara Hoffman.
Dynamic and imaginative, KINK ventures into the frontiers of boundary-pushing desires while upholding literary excellence. These fifteen short stories explore love and desire, BDSM, and interests across the sexual spectrum—it is a loud and proud celebration of themes sometimes deemed too taboo for public consumption. There is profound intimacy, whips and chains, and even a Victorian-era sex theater, but the true power of these stories lies in their beautiful, moving dispatches from the darkest chambers of the heart and mind. This bold anthology provides a fictional window into the possibilities of sexual desire from some of the most exciting writers at work today.
R.O. Kwon’s nationally bestselling first novel, The Incendiaries, is published by Riverhead, and it is being translated into seven languages. Named a best book of the year by over forty publications, The Incendiaries was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award for Best First Book and Los Angeles Times First Book Prize. Kwon’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Paris Review, NPR, and elsewhere. She is a National Endowment for the Arts fellow.
Garth Greenwell is the author of What Belongs to You, which won the British Book Award for Debut of the Year, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and was a finalist for six other awards, including the PEN/Faulkner Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, it was named a Best Book of 2016 by over fifty publications in nine countries, and is being translated into more than a dozen languages. His second book of fiction, Cleanness, was published in 2020. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, A Public Space, and VICE, and he has written criticism for The New Yorker, the London Review of Books, and The New York Times Book Review, among others. A 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, he lives in Iowa City.
To view all Book Club picks, please visit the LARB Book Club page.
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“Bless Kink for opening up the spaces between all binaries, for daring to hold open desire between bodies on the brink of ecstasy. Between pleasure and pain, between hunger and thirst, between power and surrender, these stories will remind you how desire let loose can write us back to life. A pure erotic fury. An unapologetic delight brought to the cusp of trembling." —Lidia Yuknavitch, bestselling author of Verge and The Book of Joan
A groundbreaking anthology of literary short fiction, KINK (Simon & Schuster; February 9, 2021), is edited by lauded writers R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell and featuring previously and never-before published works by a who’s who cast of contributors including Roxane Gay, Alexander Chee, Brandon Taylor, Carmen Maria Machado, Kim Fu, Callum Angus, Vanessa Clark, Melissa Febos, Zeyn Joukhadar, Chris Kraus, Peter Mountford, Larissa Pham, and Cara Hoffman.
Dynamic and imaginative, KINK ventures into the frontiers of boundary-pushing desires while upholding literary excellence. These fifteen short stories explore love and desire, BDSM, and interests across the sexual spectrum—it is a loud and proud celebration of themes sometimes deemed too taboo for public consumption. There is profound intimacy, whips and chains, and even a Victorian-era sex theater, but the true power of these stories lies in their beautiful, moving dispatches from the darkest chambers of the heart and mind. This bold anthology provides a fictional window into the possibilities of sexual desire from some of the most exciting writers at work today.
¤
R.O. Kwon’s nationally bestselling first novel, The Incendiaries, is published by Riverhead, and it is being translated into seven languages. Named a best book of the year by over forty publications, The Incendiaries was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award for Best First Book and Los Angeles Times First Book Prize. Kwon’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Paris Review, NPR, and elsewhere. She is a National Endowment for the Arts fellow.
Garth Greenwell is the author of What Belongs to You, which won the British Book Award for Debut of the Year, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and was a finalist for six other awards, including the PEN/Faulkner Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, it was named a Best Book of 2016 by over fifty publications in nine countries, and is being translated into more than a dozen languages. His second book of fiction, Cleanness, was published in 2020. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, A Public Space, and VICE, and he has written criticism for The New Yorker, the London Review of Books, and The New York Times Book Review, among others. A 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, he lives in Iowa City.
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To view all Book Club picks, please visit the LARB Book Club page.
LARB Staff Recommendations
Gentrifi(Kink)tion: Sex Writing Goes Literary, Again
Daniel Felsenthal on the presumptions and missed opportunities of “Kink.”
Flavors of Freak
From the bondage expert to the innocently curious, there’s something in “Kink” for everyone.
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