‘Virgins’ by Danielle Evans

Danielle Evans’ story introduces us to a trio of teenage friends: Erica (our narrator), Jasmine and Michael. The three friends have an easy closeness which is shown through their witty, cutting and perfectly pitched dialogue. The teenagers exist in a world marked by danger and employ various strategies to keep themselves safe; nevertheless, as Erica observes, there is “no such thing as safe, only safer”. Their paths diverge sharply at a certain point in the story. Evans dissects, with breathtaking precision, the complex strategies girls employ to keep themselves safe in hostile situations.

First published in The Paris Review, Issue 182, Fall 2007. Available for subscribers to read here

‘Boys Go to Jupiter’ by Danielle Evans

At what point does inaction become action? This is the question at the heart of Danielle Evans’s cogent narrative of a young white woman’s flirtation with some of the uglier factions of her identity. When a photo of Claire in a Confederate flag bikini goes unintentionally viral, she must reckon with the fallout on the campus of her small liberal arts college. Rather than apologize, Claire doubles down and sides with her small but vocal group of defenders. This story is all the more poignant considering it was published in 2017, before the term “cancel culture” was ceaselessly lobbed around by pundits.

First published in The Sewanee Review, Fall 2017, and available for subscribers to read here. Collected in The Office of Historical Corrections, Riverhead, 2020

‘Boys Go to Jupiter’ by Danielle Evans

* Picked by Jo Lloyd

Full disclosure: it’s technically a winter holiday that kicks off this story, but a steamy Florida winter featuring all our favourite summer holiday ingredients – mean stepmother, resentful college girl, bored days by the pool, unsuitable boy picked up at burger joint, photo in Confederate flag bikini posted on social media. Oh. Dear. Claire doesn’t get it – she had Black best friends as a kid! – so on her return to college she doubles down with some spectacularly bad decisions. Everyone takes sides and things escalate rapidly. We might think we’re heading straight for something reductive and preachy, but we’d be wrong. Claire is no monster – she’s spiky and a bit self-destructive and she gets all the best lines. Her history with those Black best friends is tangled with love and grief. To say any more about the issues explored here would do a disservice to Evans’s handling of her material – funny, provocative, knowing, nuanced, and yes, angry. The story is both challenging and hugely enjoyable – as is the whole of Evans’s brilliant second collection.

First published in Sewanee Review, Fall 2017, and available to subscribers to read here. Collected in The Office of Historical Collections, Riverhead 2020/Picador 2021

* Jo Lloyd won the BBC National Short Story Award in 2019. Her 2021 collection, published in the UK as The Earth, Thy Great Exchequer, Ready Lies and in the US as Something Wonderful, was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize.