Man Hating Psycho: Stories

In Man Hating Psycho, Iphgenia Baal captures the humor, absurdism, and surreality of online encounters, demonstrating how the indifferent depravity that rules the internet has spilled over into our everyday, face-to-face interactions. In these stories, set in London in the late aughts, young people stage rooftop confessions, DIY group shows, and bowling-alley brawls, and fumble toward a muddled sense of racial and class identity and sexual politics in a world growing increasingly unfamiliar.

In “Pain in the Neck,” a woman’s misguided act of generosity toward an old friend leads to one of the worst nights of her life. A group of teenagers in “Pro Life” disintegrates over a shocking secret that proves their inability to see one another clearly. And in “Crazy Menu,” a dissolute stag party at a Ukrainian strip club unravels into a hilarious spectacle of excess. Provocative, irreverent, and startlingly original, this collection cements Baal as one of the most resolute and daring voices in contemporary literature.