Award-winning author Roxane Gay hosts this book club, where we read books by underrepresented American writers, talk about those books, and, when we’re lucky, talk to the writers of those books.
Age of Calamities: Stories - Paperback by Senaa Ahmad
In her 2019 short story “<u>The Skin of a Teenage Boy Is Not Alive,</u>” Senaa Ahmad’s protagonist Parveen has heard the story of her classmate Benny’s possession by a demon, but she has missed the event. Benny, who tells the “dumb demon cult kids” that he wants to get possessed and then proceeds to fall off the roof of the house where all the teenagers are partying right after. Benny survives his fall, “although it will take months for the demon to evaporate from his skin, maybe years.” Over the course of the story, Parveen encounters the demon numerous times—sometimes talking to Benny outside a restaurant or at a school dance—seeking him out the way she and others do her good friend Aisha, who is popular and gets recruited to join the demon cult. Parveen even participates in a demon cult ritual late in the story to try to extract the demon from Benny. Parveen desperately courts the demon’s presence, and the demon moves through everyone else in the circle, but it skips her entirely. The rejection—along with many of her high school memories—haunts her,:
She will see the demon everywhere, in the years to come…She will see him in her dreams. She will see him writhing and sweating and fuming at parties and bars and on sailboats and in limousines and at weddings and at funerals. And always she will be struck how she feels at the sight—horrible, lonely, familiar. The most familiar thing in the universe. Like seeing a long-lost friend. She will think, I know you, I know you.
The story of Parveen and the demon is a horror story, but in Ahmad’s hands, it’s also a chameleon of a narrative, a deft commentary on the horrors of teenhood and high school, on the eternal trick of nostalgia, on the grief and rage of never quite fitting in.
Ahmad’s debut collection, *<u>The Age of Calamities</u>*, features more of her chameleon narratives, stories that shift nimbly from horror to humor to tenderness. While *The Age of Calamities* bills itself as a collection of alternate histories—featuring historical figures like Anne Boleyn, Joan of Arc, Napoleon, and Marilyn Monroe—they are histories by way of a funhouse mirror: each life is refracted by fabulist absurdity and warped with dread. In “Let’s Play Dead,” Henry VIII can’t quite manage to kill Anne Boleyn off, and she keeps returning; In “Our Lady of Resplendent Misfortune,” the protagonist Claribel has reluctantly ceded her body to Joan of Arc at night, and she soon comes to regret it; in “Choose Your Own Apocalypse," the reader is dropped into a choose your own adventure book as a lab assistant working on the Manhattan Project in 1945. While these stories lean heavily towards the speculative, they maintain at their center a profound fascination with the interworkings of the human mind and heart and a keen understanding of the strange stories we often feel compelled to tell to make sense of an untenable, unknowable world.
*The Age of Calamities* is a moving, disturbing, inventive collection, a reminder that history is what we make it and humanity is nothing like what it seems. I’m looking forward to discussing it with you throughout the month of February. We will be in conversation with Senaa on February 25 at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET. You can register <u>here</u>.
Roxane Gay’s writing appears in Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many others. She is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. She is the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, the New York Times bestselling Bad Feminist, the nationally bestselling Difficult Women and the New York Times bestselling Hunger. She is also the author of World of Wakanda for Marvel. She has several books forthcoming and is also at work on television and film projects. She also has a newsletter, The Audacity and once had a podcast, The Roxane Gay Agenda.
Q's about the book club?
Joining is easy. Just subscribe above, pick your favorite host or club, and choose a plan that fits your rhythm — monthly or quarterly. Every plan includes exclusive member perks and bits of joy delivered in every box.
Allstora Tokens are your monthly key to choice. They let you decide what lands on your doorstep: Roxanne's selection, another club’s pick, or something fun from The Pride Shop. Tokens give you the freedom to shape your reading life each month.
On the 15th of your renewal month, tokens are added to your account. You’ll have 72 hours to make your selection before orders lock. We’ll send a reminder when it’s time to choose. Nothing ships until you make your selection.
If life gets busy, we’ll still do our best to rush your book if we have stock available! Rush orders cost one token.
Totally fine. Your tokens roll forward for up to 12 months. You can stockpile them like a dragon hoarding queer literature, then spend them when the next story (or tote bag) calls your name.
Books ship once you redeem your tokens for that month’s selection. Orders go out during the last week of the month and usually arrive the first week of the next month. If you redeem late, we’ll do our best to get it to you quickly.
Visit your new dashboard here: 👉https://my.allstora.com/account Log in with the same email used at checkout. If you haven’t created an account yet, select “Create Account” and you’ll receive a one-time passcode by email. Once signed in, your subscriptions, tokens, and orders will sync automatically.
All renewals occur on the 15th of each month. On that date, your plan renews and new tokens are added to your account. Monthly plans → tokens issued monthly Quarterly plans → tokens issued every three months
For quarterly book club subscriptions, you will be billed every three months on the 15th for the next month’s book pick. Depending on the month you sign up, you’ll be on one of three cycles: Cycle 1: January, April, July, and October books Cycle 2: February, May, August, and November books Cycle 3: March, June, September, and December books
Each club’s upcoming title is announced on the 15th of the prior month. You can preview the pick and, if it’s not your vibe, simply hold your tokens (for up to a year) to use on another title or item instead.
No drama. Skip it! Your tokens will patiently wait in your account (for up to a year) until a book, merch item, or moment speaks to you.
Yep! You can cancel anytime after your first renewal. No hoops, no heartbreak.
Nope! We’re “read at your own pace” people. Discussion prompts go live weekly in Kiki, but you can jump in whenever the spirit (or your schedule) allows.
Don’t worry, we’ve got you. Your memberships automatically merge behind the scenes, so you’ll never be double-billed. Your perks stick around as long as you have an active subscription or membership.
Manage everything in one place at: https://my.allstora.com/account There you can: — Update your payment method or shipping info — Skip, switch, or cancel your plan — Review token balance and order history Still need assistance? Contact us anytime at info@allstora.com
Explore compelling sapphic fiction and memoirs that center queer women’s voices and experiences. From heartfelt romances to powerful personal stories, this club brings readers together around books that inspire connection and conversation.
