A young lawyer moonlights as an ersatz psychic; a woman struggles with the caregiver burden caused by her boyfriend’s satanic possession; a suburban mother reckons with Kafka’s The Metamorphosis in mass-casualty form. In the blank quotidian spaces of Matthew Meade’s debut collection, circumstances of profound and surreal horror—reanimated corpses, conspiracy theorists attacked by “energy weapons,” highbrow artwork that’s alive (and acting like a jerk)—dissipate with shockingly deadpan ease into sensitive accounts of ordinary human relationships and resilience. With its heartfelt portraits of a magical world where late-stage capitalism has blurred the boundaries between the living and the dead, Strip Mall presents a strangely grace-filled vision of the dystopia already upon us.
Available from Tailwinds Press, November 15th, 2023.
