Some of you might have read one of Shellie Zacharia's trademark pieces of short-short fiction in the debut issue of The Studio Review — a tiny story, a little odd, but approachable. The kind of story that invites you in, offers you a cup of coffee or a Bed, Bath, & Beyond gift card, and suggests you make yourself at home in a house where everything is a little off. Now Playing (Keyhole Press, 2009), Zachariah's first collection, is a whirlwind tour of Zacharia's deft imagination and style. The author manages oddball stories that never put you off, effortlessly quirky, and stories that surprise without pulling Shyamalisms out of nowhere.
Most of these stories are about women, many of them trying, in one way or another, to deal with a breakup, or the loss of something, or a world that fails to live up to their expectations. "Request for a Refund" is exactly what it sounds like, a woman's letter requesting a refund for Danny Gilbert's Songwriting for Guitar Players class. Zacharia uses these kinds of formats a lot: letters and forms and writers ruminating about the stories she can't write. "What to Do on a Saturday Night One Week After Your Lover Announced 'Sayonara, Sweetheart,' Even Though He's Not Japanese and He Never Called You Sweetheart Before," is also just what it sounds like: a list of things you do to get over a breakup, from people-watching in bookstores to making sock puppets out of the detritus in the closet. Talk to it. "Don't let it talk to you, though," she writes. "That would be crazy."
