Beyond All Reasonable Doubt, Jesus Is Alive!: Stories

"Powerful short fiction that lingers."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Lozada-Oliva shines in this scintillating collection . . . Readers will be enthralled."—Publishers Weekly

"Melissa Lozada-Oliva writes with a perfect blend of intoxicating magic and unflinching humor, illuminating the visceral tensions of yearning and darkness that define our most human moments. A beautiful, sharp-tongued collection that feels like an instant classic with an edge all its own."—Chelsea Bieker, author of Madwoman and Godshot

From the author of Dreaming of You and Candelaria comes an ethereal and revelatory short story collection about faith, delusion, and the demons that can't get enough of us.

A beheaded body interrupts a quinceañera. An obsession with her father’s bizarre video game shifts a lonely girl’s reality. A sentient tail sprouts from a hospital worker’s backside, throwing her romantic life into peril. And in the novella “Community Hole,” a recently cancelled musician flees New York and finds herself in a haunted punk house in Boston.

This collection, at once playful, grisly, and tender, presents a tapestry of women ailing for something to believe in – even if it hurts them. Using body horror, fabulism, and humor, Melissa Lozada-Oliva mines the pain and uncanniness of the modern world. Reveling in the fine line between disgust and desire, Beyond All Reasonable Doubt, Jesus is Alive! is for the sinner in us all.