Honest weirdness

Readers who loved Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel Eileen will definitely want to pick up this collection of fourteen stories, many of which appeared in The Paris Review and The New Yorker. As dark as the themes in Homesick for Another World: Stories ($26, Penguin Press) are, Moshfegh’s humor is still darker; we may feel guilty when we smirk or chuckle, but smirk or chuckle we must. Whether it’s the hipster dude whose relationship with a high-end furniture dealer requires him to track down an ottoman, a high school English teacher who slums with junkies, or a new widower who starts to question everything when he looks at his late wife’s recent vacation photos, these stories will show us just how normal our weirdnesses are, at least when they’re accompanied by authentic emotion.