Exit Zero is a whimsical collection of 12 short stories, many of which delve into the realm of magical realism. To give you an idea of the types of characters and worlds it conjures, there are unicorns, exes falling from the sky, haunted peaches, vampires, a Cher painting in the “wrong” (but actually, right!) hands, a Groundhog Day scenario mixed with a “Cheers” episode, knighthood programs, and an escaped tiger, among many other delightful and quirky situations. However, beneath the quirkiness and absurdity lies pathos, with profound explorations of loneliness, estrangement, grief, relationship dynamics, and love (platonic or otherwise). Short stories can be tricky because, in such a limited space, you must build an entire world and make the reader care about the characters - but Bertino pulls this off strikingly well. The world-building, especially given the supernatural and magical realism elements, is a joy to experience. What's even more impressive is how she fleshes out her characters, who remain grounded in reality even when surrounded by strange occurrences. This balance is difficult to achieve, but once again, Bertino does it with skill.

A lot of quirky fiction is often dismissed as "not serious literature", but Bertino forces you to reconsider that assumption - there are moments and lines in these stories that hit you hard, when you least expect them. Bertino doesn't try to spoon-feed you information, allowing you to piece together the world on your own, which makes the reading experience all the more engaging. She expertly offers fragments of the world her stories inhabit, like puzzle pieces waiting to be connected, until the very end when all the threads come together - or sometimes, when they don’t, leaving it up to the reader's interpretation. The stories jump between characters, times, and plot threads, which can create a disorienting effect (likely intentional!), yet there's something comforting about reading these stories, even amid the unpredictability. These tales are quite different from her acclaimed, accessible novel 'Beautyland' (which I absolutely loved!), more in line with her earlier work, 'Parakeet' (which I liked!); however, this doesn't diminish their strength or beauty. If you've read 'Beautyland', you'll recognize lines and references from that novel woven into these stories - like tiny Easter eggs hidden within the collection. Even though some of these stories likely existed before the novel was written, the connections feel deliberate, adding an extra layer of depth for those familiar with her earlier work. As with all short story collections, I had favorites, including 'Exit Zero' (which I loved!), 'Lottie Woodside and the Diamond Dust Cher', 'The Ecstasy of Sam Malone', 'The Night Gardener', 'Flowers and Their Meanings', and 'Viola in Midwinter'. I highly recommend this collection for its unparalleled creativity (truly unlike anything I’ve read before!), and for anyone in need of a bit of magic and whimsy in their life.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author (Marie-Helene Bertino), and the publisher (Farrar, Straus and Giroux | FSG Originals) for an advanced copy. Thoughts and review are completely my own.

I am not a short story reader in general but couldn’t help but request this from NetGalley as I love everything Marie-Helene Bertino does, and this did not disappoint.

As a collection, there are a few themes that stand out: magical realism, weird relationships with parents, grief and loss. The stories themselves are charming, blending the fantastical and surreal with the mundane. What I love about Bertino is her ability to assign incredibly specific words to incredibly specific feelings, so you’re left thinking Oh my god, how did she know I do/think/feel that? and Okay I’m glad I’m human. And she’s really weird, also.

I think my favourite story was The Night Gardener. Unsettling and endearing at once. Reminiscent of Beautyland for reasons I won’t spoil. There were a few stories I personally found less successful or rather less relatable to me — but I think anybody could probably find a story for them in here.

A collection that slowly grows on you; where absurdities become less absurd and more revelatory. Is it that you become situated, abandoning logic or is it a realisation that the hardships in life seem inexplicable but once you share them, are the easiest to understand? Bertino may not have a solid answer but she can relate - and she does it the most refreshingly peculiar ways.

Many thanks to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of Marie-Helene Bertino’s excellent new collection of short stories Exit Zero. I was so excited to see this title since, as anyone who lives in the Philadelphia area knows from visits down the shore, Exit Zero is Cape May, or it could also be a pathway to Rio Grande, where the main characters from the titular story goes to sort out her recently deceased father’s affairs and makes a startling and magical discovery about his life, from which she was largely absent. This story, like many of the others, features characters who experience both loss and an extraordinary event, often one following the other. In some ways, these stories have a similar feel to Bertino’s amazing book Beautyland, which was another reason I was so excited to read these stories. I haven’t read anything else by Bertino, but I have been meaning to. Beautyland was rightly heralded as one of the best books of 2024, and I absolutely loved the book. Not only is it a great book that takes place for part of the time in Philly (and Wildwood, which is the exit before Exit Zero), but it also speaks to those who always feel a sense of difference, and how they make meaning in a world that doesn’t always accept them. It’s also an incredible story about friendships, relationships, and loss. With the first few stories in this collection, I initially felt like the tone was a little darker and there was more of an emphasis on loss and splits, as death, estrangement, and divorce all feature into these stories. Yet, when I think back about Beautyland, there were similar themes and events that Adina dealt with in her experiences observing and reporting on human behavior. I think she just tried to experience it from such an objective perspective that it created this incredible view that enabled me to reflect and think about my own interactions and expectations for relationships.
While the characters in Exit Zero are not aliens, one character, Viola, from “Viola in Midwinter”, transcends her humanity, yet experiences the kind of sadness and loneliness that she probably didn’t anticipate when she befriended Samara at the factory. This story is the last one in the collection and puts a creative spin on a more common type of horror story, one that considers the implications of loneliness and the kind of solitary existence that might come with living forever. It’s a really cool and unique take, and despite being filled with a kind of sorrow and longing for connection, I really enjoyed it, and it also reminded me of those themes from Beautyland—the desire to connect, observing others from a distance, and being equally intrigued and repulsed by their behavior.
The first two stories, “Marry the Sea” and “Edna in Rain”, seemed a little more like experiments than stories. They are both brief and surreal. “Marry the Sea” had some delightful images and word play, and it will be a story I need to revisit to further understand and make meaning from. “Edna in Rain” was another brief story about a woman who envisions her ex-boyfriends raining down outside. It has one of my favorite lines from the book too, “Sometimes I feel like God’s favorite sitcom.” There are other great lines and descriptions throughout the book that just made me stop and highlight it, and think more about its meaning and how I never heard something like this before. At first, the story reminded me of one from Ling Ma’s collection Bliss Montage, where she lives with all of her ex-boyfriends in a house or something, but Bertino’s story has fewer interactions with the exes. It seems like they go back further and further in her consciousness to include boys with whom she interacted, until it gets to her second grade boyfriend. It’s a surprising ending that I won’t ruin here, but the story ends with a sadness that comes from young revelations. It’s a stunning story for being so short and kind of magical in the beginning.
“Exit Zero” is the third story, and I can see why it bears the book’s title as well. It’s a great story about Jo, an event planner living in Brooklyn, whose estranged father passes away. She must go to Rio Grande, amazingly described as a one-strip-mall town” known for its fish tacos. I spent many summers in Cape May at my grandmom’s house, and I can remember taking trips over to Rio Grande, to go to the K-Mart or see a moving that was playing on Beach Drive’s theater. It always seemed like a reprieve from the shore to a kind of non-vacation world. Nevertheless, Jo’s experience in Rio Grande, sorting through the remains of her father’s life takes an unexpected turn when she discovers a unicorn in the backyard that her father had been caring for. This story is wonderful and heartbreaking as Jo tries to care for and understand the unicorn, and these steps she makes to care for this magical living creature also, in some ways, bring her closer to understanding her father. If you’ve ever experienced loss, only to question how things ended and what could have changed things, this story may appeal to you. Also, if you’ve ever been to Cape May, Wildwood, or Rio Grande, it should appeal to you as well, as well as several other stories—“Flowers and Their Meanings” and I think “Lottie Woodside and the Diamond Dust Cher” mentions Higbee Beach. I’m definitely going to recommend this book to all my family that spends the summer in Cape May.
“Can Only Houses Be Haunted?” is another interesting story that details the moment the narrator viewed her marriage as breaking. It’s also a kind of humorous ghost story that I would love to see turned into a short film or maybe a chapter in some kind of anthology movie. The child ghost in the story is pretty creepy, but the way that they expel the ghost is pretty funny. “Lottie Woodside and the Diamond Dust Cher” also details the end of a marriage, so this was when I started to notice the theme of loss, especially a kind of loss in relationships. This story follows a woman who, on the day of finalizing her divorce, decides to splurge on a cab ride, but ends up in a cab with another woman, and they both are involved in an accident. As a result, Lottie ends up with the woman’s package, which ends up being a fancy portrait of Cher. She tries to deliver the portrait to an art gallery, but never ends up getting to see the curator. I loved the scenes in the gallery. It reminded me of Otessa Moshfegh’s skewering of art in My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Even more absurd is how Lottie ends up wandering around NY with this large portrait of Cher when all she wants to do is go home and rearrange her apartment to start her life anew. I wasn’t sure if this was some kind of reference to turning back time, since it seems that Lottie ends up reflecting on how her marriage slowly disintegrated, and how her indifference may have contributed to it. Although both of these stories deal with divorce, I found them to also be absurd and funny, to a certain extent. If anything, the characters have unreal events that help them understand more about their situations and maybe allow them to gain new perspectives on their loss and how to move ahead.
“The Ecstasy of Sam Malone” is another surreal and absurd story where the main character ends up trapped in an episode of Cheers. She seems to want to escape her real life, abandoning her studies to drink at bars, only to wake up one night and exit to the bar where everyone knows your name. I loved how this story veers between recalling plotlines of episodes and the recurring gags and jokes, and how the narrator really tries to escape through Melville’s. Interestingly, a stranger enters the bar, explaining that he wants to have a drink while he waits for his wife’s surgery. No one at the bar believes him; they all think he’s been sent by the rival bar to get revenge for beating them in a sports contest. I wondered if this was also a kind of message about loss and grief, and how even where everyone knows your name, they might not really believe these kinds of challenging feelings and emotions. Rather than confront them, they want to keep up the jokes and the façade of life that allows us to keep laughing. I would love to include these stories in a book club discussion to see what others think. The magic and absurdity of these stories adds to the depth and ambiguity in their message and meaning.
I also really loved “The Night Gardener” about a woman who gardens at night, but begins to receive messages from balloons. She begins to communicate with them, and they respond. Claudia, the night gardener, has an admirer from work, but she doesn’t really reciprocate his feelings. He brings over flowers, and she ends up texting her sister asking about the flowers. While Claudia has someone who is interested in her and wants to talk to her, she spends more time with the balloons and texting her sister. The story culminates with Claudia preparing her garden for a gardening contest in the city. I loved the mysterious communication and some of the insights we gain about Claudia and why she keeps texting her sister. It’s another great story about loss and the things we hold on to. “Kathleen in Light Colors” is a story about a couple that discover there is something between them that ultimately keeps them apart. It is never named, but it also ends up bringing them to other people. It’s a shorter story, but again, it is one of the more profound reflections on loss and relationships ending. “Every Forest, Every Film” is about a film critic who ends up filling in for another critic (who just so happens to be named Jude Law, like the actor) at a new hot show that she is supposed to have heard or read about, but didn’t really know. It’s called The Cab and is kind of like an interactive, immersive cab ride that ultimately disorients the critic, but also that amazes her. The critic is recently divorced, and her father ends up sending her a package that he seems nervous about its arrival. His explanation at the end of the story makes more sense, and I think it also speaks to the challenges of how loved ones navigate divorces of those they care about. Although he has good intentions, it also seemed kind of an odd choice to send. The other element of this story I loved was the aura and setting of The Cab. Bertino describes the workers in a hilarious way. This is another story I will need to revisit, and one that I would love to hear discussed in a book club. I’m still trying to make sense of the different parts that come together in this story, but I think that is what makes this story so great.
“In the Basement of Saint John the Divine” was both sad and strange, and I loved the ending of this story. The story focuses on James, a younger boy who only recently had his sight restored. His dad decides to have him spend the night at a kind of medieval sleepover, where the participants act as knights. His mom is returning to stand up comedy, but is nervous about allowing her recently sighted son to spend the night out. Even though this story is more about gaining than loss, James still loses something as he gains sight, and the story also focuses on what role parents play in the growth and development of their children, and James’ parents feel like maybe with his sight restored, they are no longer necessary to help shape his world. It’s a powerful story about taking steps where you may not feel comfortable and being willing to take those kinds of risks to discover what you are really capable of. “Flowers and Their Meanings” is also about parent-child relationships, and specifically focuses on a narrator who as a late teen ends up taking care of her mother while she recovers from surgery. During this summer, the narrator works at a local clothing shop, and I imagined that this story also took place in Rio Grande from her description. There is also a tiger on the lose from the “tiny shore-town zoo”, so I immediately thought of the Cape May Zoo, which is actually a great zoo. We see the narrator care for others as well—whether it is a customer stuck in a dress or deciding not to further confront the family of a man who harassed her while they are having a meal. It’s an interesting story where we see how she remains responsible and caring, despite or maybe in spite of all the bad events taking place in other families.
I couldn’t put this book down, reading several stories at a time. As I mentioned, I can’t wait to tell my cousins and relatives who regularly spend their summers in Cape May about Exit Zero and Beautyland. I’ve been meaning to tell my sister about Beautyland because it’s such a beautiful story, and these stories in Exit Zero also serve as a great entry point to further enjoy Beautyland. I loved how they traverse some familiar terrain, but ask us to look at emotions and tragic events like death, divorce, loss from a different perspective, often trying to find the humor, magic, or surrealness in them. This is how we can manage to get through these situations and find meaning. I highly recommend this collection, and need to make sure I pick up Bertino’s other collections and books.

A woman trapped in a rerun. A tiger on the loose. Boohoo ghosts. Unicorns.

Bertino’s writing reminds me of Amelie. The way scenes chop up and progress into unexpected unravelings. Childlike wonder. Deep thrills in the simple and wondrous. Veering on magical realism, the stories surprise with every world. And though they aren’t fully fleshed out and perhaps need a bit more writing to become larger somethings, Bertino’s prose and imagination is what creates a boldness I haven’t found in other writers. It’s distinct, takes time getting used to, but if you’ve ever run around the city with a bunch of errands on three cold brews, seeing in seconds and forgetting shapes and colors altogether, everything meshing into Gershwin symphony, then you understand the wonder that she writes from. And sometimes that’s enough.

<u>Exit Zero</u>
Marie-Helene Bertino

ARC courtesy of Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley.

Fans of Beautyland and 2 A.M. at the Cat’s Pajamas would be happy to hear that Marie-Helene Bertino has, indeed, come to the party in Exit Zero, her latest book of twelve short stories coming out April 22, 2025. With ghosts, unicorns and raining ex-boyfriends, Bertino’s quirky, wry humor will not disappoint, although I must admit that some of the stories were a teeny bit too far out for me. Exit Zero should appeal to readers of Bora Chung and Samanta Schweblin short stories.

3.5 stars

EXIT ZERO-MARIE-HELENE BERTINO-Publishing April 22nd, 2025 by FSG. @fsgbooks @fsgoriginals

📚A collection of twelve short stories that capture Bertino’s signature writing and wit. I have not read Beautyland or other books by Bertino, but have them on my TBR. This collection of short stories was unique and an interesting read. Bertino is the master of unique, weird, quirky writing and stories. As I was reading these stories the past few weeks, my emotions were all over the place. Happy, sad, mad, curious.

The stories at times seem fragmented. Short pieces of stories, often left to the writer to fill in the blanks. I love this and love that it makes the reader think long after your finished reading.
Only Bertino could have unicorn’s, haunted peaches and vampires, and still hold my attention. Reminds me of Amy Hempel at times.

Favorite stories: Exit Zero, Can Only Houses be Haunted?

🐠Unsettling, quirky, weird, compelling, charming, unconventional. Lovely.
Don’t miss this upcoming collection, coming April 22, 2025.

#books #booksaredeadly #booksaremagic #booksbooksbooks #readmorebooks #shortstories #fiction #YYT #YYZ #shortfictio #exitzero

Its hard to rate a series of short stories, since some were much stronger than others. Overall I liked this collection.

How curious—I thought Bertino’s charmingly unconventional tales would land perfectly as short stories. Beautyland was one of my favorites from 2024—her quirky, childlike voice and the sci-fi and speculative fiction genres merge wonderfully. In Exit Zero, the author carries those elements over: the playful writing creates a light-hearted mood as she subtly engages with ideas like loss, separation, and belonging for humans. You can count on peacocks and tigers making the cast list with the story Exit Zero, featuring unicorns, as my top pick (without a doubt) from this collection. Ultimately, the stories felt hurried and required more cooking time. This could be because it takes readers slightly longer to adjust to the author’s unique style and pantomime; by the time I catch the rhythm of the fantastical stories, it seems the next tune starts. The nostalgic quality of Bertino’s writing makes me look forward to what she’ll publish next.

My thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for an ARC. I shared this review on GoodReads on April 9, 2025 (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7430887994).

Every time I think about how to describe these stories I feel unmoored, which is a descriptor in and of itself.

They were surreal. They were unsettling. Every character was so authentic and in many cases relatable. The Night Gardener's protagonist had me on the edge of my seat. In the Basement of Saint John the Divine, I felt a desire to rach out and comfort James. The Ecstasy of Sam Malone had me almost afraid for our narrator.

These stories have the same vibes as those Poe or Jackson stories you read in middle/high school that haunt you for years to come. I suspect I will be thinking of this collection for a long time.

Bertino is one of the most creative, fun and strange writers today. These stories are a great example of the quirky spirit and bizarre premises that define her work. If you loved Beautyland and/or Safe as Houses, you will also want to check this out. I think my favorite four stories in the collection were: The Night Gardener, Exit Zero, Can Only Houses be Haunted, and Every Forest, Every Film. Mysterious balloons, an inherited unicorn, a haunted peach are just a few of the fun things you'll find in these 12 short stories. She is somehow able to beautifully navigate serious themes and deep emotions from a different angle that doesn't minimize those emotions but allows us to experience them in new ways. Highly recommend.

Thanks #netgalley for the ARC.

Bertino is a spectacular writer! I have '2 a.m. at the cat's pajamas' on my shelves but never picked anything by her before. Her writing is deeply emotional, raw, funny and experimental. Really loved this collection, my favorite stories were Exit Zero and Edna in the Rain.

Thank you very much for the arc.

Marie-Helene Bertino's second short story collection, Exit Zero, feels dipped in mortality. Characters are aging, dying, haunted. But unlike most stories that dance around death, this collection of twelve warms us with typical Bertino charm. Nothing feels grotesque, or scary. The overall mood is not unlike that of Beautyland (one of my favorite books of 2024). Unsettling events may happen but the reader never feels frightened or threatened. Rather, we're happily along for the ride.

In this collection I had three favorite stories: Exit Zero, The Night Gardener and Lottie Wootside & Diamond Dust Cher.

“Exit Zero”, which I'd previously inhaled in The New Yorker, is a winner of PEN/O. Henry Prize and rightly so. It's extraordinary. An original story with a compelling protagonist, Jo, is exactly the combination I crave as a reader. Add in magic balanced with the challenges of 21st century life and we have a tiny gem of a tale. Readers will cheer on Jo but see that in some ways, she's making things harder for herself. But she does this in ways that feel both relatable and human. Jo is us. The same could be said for Claudia (The Night Gardener) and Lottie (Lottie Wootside & Diamond Dust Cher). This ability is one of Bertino's biggest strengths as a writer. She's a master at showing us the small life events that make us human. I love this dependable through-line in her work.

That said, Exit Zero as a collection, as a whole, for me was bumpy. Each story is Bertino-esque but fell for me more in Parakeet territory: I didn't care enough about the characters or story to be enthralled. For that reason, they felt flat. This criticism, however, is one of personal taste as opposed to a technical flaw. Not every story will land every time with every reader.

I highly recommend this collection to readers who love the supernatural in everyday. Or those who love stories about our shared humanity, even the humanity of a "monster".

I LOVED Marie-Helene Bertino’s novel Beautyland. I seriously recommend that book to everyone. I was very excited to see that she was putting out some new stories and signed up for the ARC!

This collection of short stories is fantastic. While some didn’t totally resonate with me, there were a few that had amazing magic realism in them that were so wild (in a good way!) Bertino’s writing style is so vivid and beautiful. That led to several of these stories practically popping off the pages almost to life. A few of these will stick with me for a long time.

Some of the highlights:
Exit Zero: A woman is notified her estranged father has passed away and all that was his is now hers. According to the estate attorney, he has some sensitive stuff. The sensitive stuff is revealed quickly and worth reading about.

Lottie Woodside and the Diamond Dust Cher:
Yes, THAT Cher. CHER!

The Night Gardener:
She loves gardening and does it at night. She receives some curious messages with big meaning. She joins a garden club to get her garden judged. Judging ensues! The whole garden club thing vaguely reminded me of the 90s movie rendition of “Dennis the Menace” when Walter Matthau wins some gardening award but Dennis screws it all up for him.

Can Only Houses Be Haunted?:
Contains great supernaturalism. But at its core, a powerful relationship story.

And…
Viola in Midwinter:
This was my favorite. A fitting finale to the collection. I feel like this one would make a great novel! And it had awesome statements about the power of women. What’s not to dig?!

Thanks to the WONDERFUL Marie-Helene Bertino, Netgalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the free early e-copy to read & review.

‘Exit Zero’ is a anthology of surrealist short stories. They range from a unicorn pet provided in a will, to a break in at a shop. The stories take on the bizarre and whimsical parts of life highlighting some of the negatives that can be associated alongside these things. I found some of the stories hard to read, despite the writer being very talented and stylistic. I would like to read her full length novel and see if this would help engage me more in the style.
I would recommend this book for fans of Ali Smith and Ottessa Moshfegh. 3 stars.

Thank you to #netgalley for this DRC of #exitzero

This is Marie-Helene Bertino at her very best - delightfully weird and wonderful. Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the ARC.

Each tale rivals the next in this collection of short stories! Masterfully written sentences describe heartbreaking yet beautiful life moments, with a dose of the peculiar: mythical creatures, haunted objects, unnamed forces. But of course those oddities *make* these stories… each the perfect metaphor for the situation.

I wanted to stretch this out so I could savor it a bit longer. Maybe, like me, you’ll find yourself wishing for a lengthier commute or just a few more minutes before having to go to bed so you can keep reading. But I will add the length of each story was the perfect "sit down and read a banger" if you are short on time :)

A definite one to cherish! I know I will return to Exit Zero to laugh and cry and be entertained and, above all, to feel.

Twelve short stories by the author of Beautyland. In their unique (unsettling) way and through her distinct brand of magic realism and the supernatural, these stories try to answer the big and small questions of life, death, and the beyond. I’m reviewing this for Strange Horizons and will definitely update this with a review link whenever it goes live. As with any collection, I adored some stories, liked others, and didn’t enjoy the remainder, but on the whole I’m a huge fan of Bertino’s writing style with its sharpness, its keen observations of humanity and what we say and don't, and the way she finds the surreal in the mundane.

Marie-Helene Bertino's writing is simply incredible.
I read one of her previous works - a novel titled Beautyland - last summer for a bookclub and it was beautiful, heartbreaking, and so brutally honest in a way that felt unraveling and mind breaking.
Exit Zero is the same. Every story gets you to quickly fall in love with the characters, their world and circumstances, and then punches you in the gut with such powerful writing that feels like an emotion is being ripped open so you can fully witness it, so you cannot avoid it. Whether it's grief (for a lost one, a lost love or a lost sense of self), love (for a partner, a family member, yourself), or any nuance of both, Bertino's words hit so poignantly I had to take many breaks because I was feeling such deep sadness.

Highly highly highly recommend (and this is coming from someone who does not like short stories and finds them unbelievably hard to care about in such short length).

Marie-Helene Bertino's talent is unparalleled and I cannot wait to read what she writes next.


Thank you NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux | FSG Originals for the opportunity to read this ARC. This amazing short story collection comes out on April 22nd, 2025.

When I was 15, I joined a program at my school that let me attend a nearby community college instead of high school while receiving credit for both. I went from being surrounded by an endless parade of teenage cliques and venomous social circles that all seemed to ignore me in equal measure to a reality where I was surrounded by people of all ages and all backgrounds mingling as if it was just the most normal thing imaginable.

The first course that I signed up for was very plainly called “Creative Writing”, but even that stark description felt light years ahead of the types of English classes offered by my high school that felt like they doubled as prison sentences more than being an exploration of literature, writing or language. The instructor of my new class was a short man with cigarette-yellow stains on both his greying moustache and his fingertips, that favoured the plaid stylings of some decade before my own time. He carried the kind of small, open-ended leather case that made it easy to see a mess of papers overflowing in every direction and a stack of worn-out books with an endless amount of post-it note annotations jutting out from what looked like every single page.

The majority of my writing class was made up of adults that were coming back to school after more than a decade away from their own graduations, while the rest had just finished high school and were simply taking the next step before applying to a university or choosing a vocation. In other words, for pretty much everyone outside of myself, this was a blow-off class; a stepping stone that all of them would likely have preferred to leap over on their way to a diploma. They barely wanted to be there to begin with and after the first ten minutes of that opening class, you could sense that feeling deepen into something almost antagonistic, something tense and unforgiving.

Our instructor was a man of few words, but the words that he did speak, he chose carefully and dictated them with an emphasis that clashed with the surroundings of our campus. It gave him a sort of awkward cadence, much like that of a Rankin-Bass villain explaining their next plan to inflict evil upon some unknowing entity. His conviction to his position and his love of the written word was obvious in that way that lends to easy criticism from those that seek out the easy targets of the world. After years of suffering through English classes taught by disinterested baseball coaches that the school needed on their payroll, I was enthralled by each word that spilled from his mouth. He instructed us to read the first entry from what was to become our main textbook, that year’s edition of The Best American Short Stories. It was story that followed an unnamed protagonist as they are led on a comprehensive job orientation at an office where something discomforting is clearly lurking under the well-managed and clean facade being presented to the new employee.

That first short story didn’t divide the class, but instead it united them in open arms against our instructor. During the next session, the air in the room was rank with bitter complaints that the story didn’t make sense, that it didn’t go anywhere, that it was pointless, that it was creepy, that it was unsettling and so on. He weathered all of these criticisms with a blank look on his face and then announced that I was the only one in class that hadn’t said a word or offered my opinion on the story. To this day, I don’t remember what I said in that panicked, on-the-spot moment as I told the class why I felt like “Orientation” was beyond brilliant and like a wake-up call to my senses, but I will forever remember the smile that crept over his face as he simply replied to me, “Yes, you nailed it.”

In 2024, Marie-Helene Bertino released a novel titled Beautyland that promised the story of a girl growing up with the belief that she exists as an alien sending communications back to her home planet reporting on humanity and all of its eccentricities. It’s a concept that many authors would have tackled and either revelled in the hilarity of potentials for misunderstanding or wallowed in the disbelief that we as humans so willingly cause each other pain in so many unique ways. Beautyland chose a different path and its central character experienced the wealth of human experience and emotion in ways that left me shouting “YES!” to an empty room as I read or cowering in the corner of my bedroom as I desperately kept reading while hoping for a resolution that took away the sinking feeling in my stomach as I worried for, adored and felt proud of her experiencing this thing we call life. As I handed a copy of Beautyland to a family member this past Christmas, I said, “You love coming of age stories? Well, get ready for the ultimate one.”

Short stories are a notoriously difficult place to work in as a writer. You aren’t given the space to spread your proverbial legs and take your time to get to the point somewhere in the 491st page of your almost never-ceasing tome. The impact needs to be felt almost immediately and has to grip the reader for several pages before it drops you off a cliff and walks away without a single thought or regret for where you land. As I crept into the first pages of Marie-Helene Bertino’s new collection of short stories, Exit Zero, I was assaulted by “Marry The Sea”, a story told in short vignettes that all appear disparate and disjointed until the moment you grasp the fabric that connects them. It’s creepy, it’s unsettling, it’s Lynchian and it’s astonishing. It’s the first story from my community college creative writing course all over again and it’s glorious in it’s execution and it’s impact.

Bertino has a gift for writing almost like she is actually an alien, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. Where most writers would look at a scene and approach it head on, she sneaks up on the sides and finds a way to describe things inside of a story that would normally feel unapproachable while also highlighting the multitude of smaller stories hidden inside of the larger one at play. For decades, people have marvelled at how much Hemmingway was able to say by not saying anything in his infamous six word short story, but Bertino deserves credit for the sheer amount of life and world-building that she is able to cram into just a few short pages. Not only could I visualize all of these characters and their surroundings, but I was left with an intense feeling of loss when my time with them had ended.

From the story of the septuagenarian divorcee that steals a painting of a famous singer in her first act of unmarried defiance to the story of the young woman stuck in a never-ending Groundhog Day style loop of one specific twenty-seven minute episode of Cheers (featuring the most chilling moment I’ve read in a book in years thanks to Frasier Crane and his priest from season two of Fleabag awareness of the fourth wall) to the tale of a woman making her way to her friend’s coffee shop as her ex-partners rain down from the sky and crash to the ground around her, Bertino’s stories relish in a surreal playfulness that straddles the line between what feels possible and what feels like something from a dream that you can’t seem to wake up from.

But no matter the level of humor or the often unavoidable feelings of anxiousness that each of the stories featured in Exit Zero conveys, Bertino is supremely adept at finding the heart of each of her characters and exploring the unanswered questions and the tears at the mental and emotional seams that plague each of them. In fact, it was one simple line at the end of one story (”When did you cut your hair?”) that left me completely unmoored and found me taking more than a day to recover from the way it pushed me off balance. I dare anyone to read the title story from this collection, a tale of a woman cleaning the house of her recently deceased father, and not come away a different sort of person than were before.

The joy and ache that one feels from being allowed the company of Bertino’s words might only be able to be described aptly enough by the author herself: “Is life very fragile or very resilient?” Writing that has the ability to produce this sort of profound effect in its readers deserves to be celebrated and I am certain that I will be championing the words that Marie-Helene Bertino arranges and expresses so beautifully for the rest of my own time as someone that has always felt out of time and out of step with this plane of existence.

Thank you to both NetGalley and FSG Originals for the chance to read and review an advanced copy of this extraordinary work.