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Pretend We Live Here
In her debut collection of stories, Pretend We Live Here (Future Tense Books), Genevieve Hudson boldly explores the idea of home and what it means to find one: in the body, in the world, in other people. Her characters are seekers, whose actions are influenced by their slippery identities and by the strange landscapes that surround them. In “Boy Box,” a young woman yearns to test her luck with a wild punk girl crush. In “God Hospital,” a character journeys deep into the woods of Alabama in search of an infamous religious healer, hoping he can fix her teeth. In “Adorno,” someone in need of forgiveness crosses paths with a band of radical vegan activists and gets subsumed into their world. In “Dance!,” a recluse writes a breakthrough song for her pink dolphin, but the song’s success only drives her further away from society.
These stories hum with sexual tension, queerness, displacement, longing, humor, and dark nostalgia. With stories set in Amsterdam, the Pacific Northwest, and the Deep South, Hudson’s attention to the nuances and uncertainty of her characters make this collection a stunning debut.
These stories hum with sexual tension, queerness, displacement, longing, humor, and dark nostalgia. With stories set in Amsterdam, the Pacific Northwest, and the Deep South, Hudson’s attention to the nuances and uncertainty of her characters make this collection a stunning debut.
174 pages, Paperback
First published July 24, 2018
14 people are currently reading
1033 people want to read
About the author
Genevieve Hudson
6 books133 followersGenevieve Hudson is the author of the novel Boys of Alabama, which was a finalist for the 2021 Oregon Book Award. Their other books include the memoir-hybrid A Little in Love with Everyone, and Pretend We Live Here: Stories, which was a Lambda Literary Award finalist.
Their work has appeared in Elle, Oprah Magazine, LA Review of Books, McSweeney’s, Bookforum, Bomb Magazine, No Tokens, Electric Literature, and other places. They've received fellowships from the Fulbright Program, MacDowell, Caldera Arts, Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, and the Vermont Studio Center.
Their work has appeared in Elle, Oprah Magazine, LA Review of Books, McSweeney’s, Bookforum, Bomb Magazine, No Tokens, Electric Literature, and other places. They've received fellowships from the Fulbright Program, MacDowell, Caldera Arts, Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, and the Vermont Studio Center.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
July 30, 2018
It's so great to work with a writer you've seen grow and grow and Genevieve has turned into a dazzler since I first met her several years ago. I love a good diverse book of stories--meaning non-connected; meaning not the "we have to market this to people who read NOVELS" frame of marketing mind. These stories have range and surprises and juice and THE FEELS! From the Northwest to Alabama and even Amsterdam (where Genevieve lives most of the time), these often cinematic tales take you into punk clubs, backcountry woods, skateparks, art galleries, dolphin tanks, humid college campuses, and one smelly activist bus. Equal doses of humor, longing, evocation, and vibrant description makes this queer diorama of fiction a total standout.
(published by my press, Future Tense Books)
https://futuretensebooks.com/product/...
(published by my press, Future Tense Books)
https://futuretensebooks.com/product/...
June 7, 2018
I loved everything about this collection. Hudson has her finger on a pulse all her own here—evoking dreamscapes and magic while still firmly grounded in a wiry and angst ridden realism that feels wholly satisfying. She somehow writes about love with the same fervent beat she writes about southern God hospitals. I kept wanting to draw some comparison to another beloved collection—but finally came to the conclusion that perhaps Hudson has carved out her own space here—and it’s exhilarating! Read read read this!
August 25, 2018
I would just like to start this off with two things: 1. The only reason why it took me so long to finish this book is because I forgot to bring it on my vacation. 2. I normally don’t read fiction but my coworker, Kevin Sampsell, published this book and the premise sounded interesting.
Wow. Let me just say: WOW. Pretend We Live Here may be one of the best collection of stories that I’ve read in a very long time. I haven’t read too many books about queer lives, which is unfortunate. The universal theme of home ties all of the stories together, and at some parts, I could feel my own baggage and insecurities starting to creep in, as if Hudson knew that she was creating something bigger than herself. Hudson’s writing is beautiful and the sentences are crafted together in unexpected ways. In a weird way, there wasn’t any short stories that I hated and I usually hate one or two. I have my favorites, of course (God Hospital; Fast, Fast, Fast; Cultural Relativism; Scarecrow; Boy Box, to name a few), but each story holds its own. No story is neglected and it is so important to recognize that. Pick up a copy of this today and tell all of your friends.
Wow. Let me just say: WOW. Pretend We Live Here may be one of the best collection of stories that I’ve read in a very long time. I haven’t read too many books about queer lives, which is unfortunate. The universal theme of home ties all of the stories together, and at some parts, I could feel my own baggage and insecurities starting to creep in, as if Hudson knew that she was creating something bigger than herself. Hudson’s writing is beautiful and the sentences are crafted together in unexpected ways. In a weird way, there wasn’t any short stories that I hated and I usually hate one or two. I have my favorites, of course (God Hospital; Fast, Fast, Fast; Cultural Relativism; Scarecrow; Boy Box, to name a few), but each story holds its own. No story is neglected and it is so important to recognize that. Pick up a copy of this today and tell all of your friends.
July 7, 2020
These were a bunch of stories by one of my newest favourite writers, Genevieve Hudson. Their novel, *Boys of Alabama*, still haunts and comforts me immensely. The queerness of the characters feels both familiar and magical.
Their debut collection, *Pretend We Live Here* from 2018, is a wild, creative, queer-as-hell bunch of shorts about the things we think we want and the private and perverse things we do to get them. I always learn so much about writing when I read a book of short stories, and this is no exception to that rule.
While most short story collections start with the clearly best story and then taper off as you read on, this collection gets even better as you near the end. Although the stories are not related, there is a building tension and a sense of oncoming doom. Brilliant.
Favourite stories: Cultural Relativism, Boy Box, Fast Fast Fast
Their debut collection, *Pretend We Live Here* from 2018, is a wild, creative, queer-as-hell bunch of shorts about the things we think we want and the private and perverse things we do to get them. I always learn so much about writing when I read a book of short stories, and this is no exception to that rule.
While most short story collections start with the clearly best story and then taper off as you read on, this collection gets even better as you near the end. Although the stories are not related, there is a building tension and a sense of oncoming doom. Brilliant.
Favourite stories: Cultural Relativism, Boy Box, Fast Fast Fast
October 11, 2025
Perfect little book of short stories about weird moments, people, and truths about the world.
June 15, 2023
Reviewed by Laura Kincaid on www.rowanglassworks.org.
Genevieve Hudson captures the comfortable in the uncomfortable. Her collection of short stories, Pretend We Live Here, centers on characters looking for home in places, in people, in their own bodies. No matter where her characters roam, readers are confronted with the violence inherent to existence through her sharp-edged but haunting, sometimes even joyful, prose.
Violence is in the cells of many of Hudson’s characters, made compelling through their flaws and uncertainty. In “Adorno,” a lesbian fails to find redemption for sleeping with her sister’s fiancé by joining a group of vegan ecoterrorists. She quotes Hannah Arendt, “The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” That’s what makes you want to keep reading about the humans Hudson conjures on the page. They want something and that something is hinted and pulled at, whether it be redemption, home, connection, or comfort in their own bodies, but their attempts or what they find is often violent. A girl seeks out a spiritual healer to tear a rotting tooth from her mouth. A genderqueer person dwells on the dysphoria of a sexual encounter as her body rots in the hospital. A lesbian tries to seduce a married woman, making her squirm under the attention. To want something, even not knowing what, is painful.
Another way in which Hudson places the reader in an intriguing unease is the uncertainty and fluidity around her character’s own identities. Hudson’s anthology is refreshingly diverse in sexuality and gender identities, but the sexuality and gender of the characters is often completely unclear. In many stories, the gender of the narrator remains unspecified. Other characters throw gender norms into question, like a straight woman named Ted or a love interest referred to as a possum. The ambiguity does not confuse the narrative, but confidently highlights the assumptions a reader makes. A piece of safety is loss when the characters slip out of your grasp, leaving a sharp paper cut as a reminder of what you thought you knew.
The reader feels the same confusion and uncertainty that many of Hudson’s characters experience. Multiple stories explore how desire and identity can be jumbled and sometimes tumultuous. In “Too Much is Never Enough,” a transgender person looks back on their childhood and their crushing on and wanting to be like their male friend Mason: “I think of myself as Mason, who is actually a dead boy. There is something sick about that. About imagining yourself as a dead boy.” The narrator lays their confusion and pain of being too boyish in spirit to be a girl and too girlish in body to be a boy, shreds of identity sewn together, for the reader. Hudson explores the inherent discomfort of identities, whether the character is comfortable in their skin or not, but they never feel forced or like a token character. In their slippery and sometimes unclear nature, Hudson’s characters feel organic and fully realized, even if they aren’t sure what they want.
Because of the strong sense of character, Hudson’s prose is brimming with cutting honesty. In “Cultural Relativism,” the narrator says of southern university she works at, “I will explain that we drink the violence in like water from the tap. We take big gulps of it that we think will nourish us until we’re made up of violence, until it’s in our very cells.” It is through the eyes of Hudson’s characters that we see the world and people around them, projecting their uncertainty, their discomfort, their hope onto the places and people they interact with. She pulls off a balancing act of comfortable discomfort. In “Transplant,” a woman sees danger everywhere through the eyes of her dead lover in the back of her skull. Hudson conveys paranoia through unnerving details like wondering if the waiter’s fork is a weapon and seeing shadows from behind, but yet Hudson can write, “I held them in my hand, two globules of wet heat, the same feeling and texture of as skinned grapes and heard them say: home.” While still unsettling, Hudson can flip a scene on edge to a small moment that captures the protagonist’s desperation and love for this person. All of Hudson’s stories take the readers from the most jarring experiences to those moments joy we catch in between through her prose.
Through full but flawed characters and brutally honest prose, Pretend We Live Here is a collection of stories that expose a raw nerve at the intersection of home and the violence that is woven into the landscape of our lives.
Genevieve Hudson captures the comfortable in the uncomfortable. Her collection of short stories, Pretend We Live Here, centers on characters looking for home in places, in people, in their own bodies. No matter where her characters roam, readers are confronted with the violence inherent to existence through her sharp-edged but haunting, sometimes even joyful, prose.
Violence is in the cells of many of Hudson’s characters, made compelling through their flaws and uncertainty. In “Adorno,” a lesbian fails to find redemption for sleeping with her sister’s fiancé by joining a group of vegan ecoterrorists. She quotes Hannah Arendt, “The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” That’s what makes you want to keep reading about the humans Hudson conjures on the page. They want something and that something is hinted and pulled at, whether it be redemption, home, connection, or comfort in their own bodies, but their attempts or what they find is often violent. A girl seeks out a spiritual healer to tear a rotting tooth from her mouth. A genderqueer person dwells on the dysphoria of a sexual encounter as her body rots in the hospital. A lesbian tries to seduce a married woman, making her squirm under the attention. To want something, even not knowing what, is painful.
Another way in which Hudson places the reader in an intriguing unease is the uncertainty and fluidity around her character’s own identities. Hudson’s anthology is refreshingly diverse in sexuality and gender identities, but the sexuality and gender of the characters is often completely unclear. In many stories, the gender of the narrator remains unspecified. Other characters throw gender norms into question, like a straight woman named Ted or a love interest referred to as a possum. The ambiguity does not confuse the narrative, but confidently highlights the assumptions a reader makes. A piece of safety is loss when the characters slip out of your grasp, leaving a sharp paper cut as a reminder of what you thought you knew.
The reader feels the same confusion and uncertainty that many of Hudson’s characters experience. Multiple stories explore how desire and identity can be jumbled and sometimes tumultuous. In “Too Much is Never Enough,” a transgender person looks back on their childhood and their crushing on and wanting to be like their male friend Mason: “I think of myself as Mason, who is actually a dead boy. There is something sick about that. About imagining yourself as a dead boy.” The narrator lays their confusion and pain of being too boyish in spirit to be a girl and too girlish in body to be a boy, shreds of identity sewn together, for the reader. Hudson explores the inherent discomfort of identities, whether the character is comfortable in their skin or not, but they never feel forced or like a token character. In their slippery and sometimes unclear nature, Hudson’s characters feel organic and fully realized, even if they aren’t sure what they want.
Because of the strong sense of character, Hudson’s prose is brimming with cutting honesty. In “Cultural Relativism,” the narrator says of southern university she works at, “I will explain that we drink the violence in like water from the tap. We take big gulps of it that we think will nourish us until we’re made up of violence, until it’s in our very cells.” It is through the eyes of Hudson’s characters that we see the world and people around them, projecting their uncertainty, their discomfort, their hope onto the places and people they interact with. She pulls off a balancing act of comfortable discomfort. In “Transplant,” a woman sees danger everywhere through the eyes of her dead lover in the back of her skull. Hudson conveys paranoia through unnerving details like wondering if the waiter’s fork is a weapon and seeing shadows from behind, but yet Hudson can write, “I held them in my hand, two globules of wet heat, the same feeling and texture of as skinned grapes and heard them say: home.” While still unsettling, Hudson can flip a scene on edge to a small moment that captures the protagonist’s desperation and love for this person. All of Hudson’s stories take the readers from the most jarring experiences to those moments joy we catch in between through her prose.
Through full but flawed characters and brutally honest prose, Pretend We Live Here is a collection of stories that expose a raw nerve at the intersection of home and the violence that is woven into the landscape of our lives.
January 7, 2019
Some stories were great (75% of them) while others bored me...this felt like an attempt at queering Lydia Davis or something? In a good way. Wish it was more subtle about trying to be contemporary (mentioning DMing and Tinder I guess?? Lol) overall enjoyed. A lot about sex, nuanced stories on gender....rural themes. Anyways. Any reviews are sounding worse and worse.... Damn
October 10, 2024
Really good writing—great stories. I just hated it because I hate short stories and Ottessa Moshfegh has traumatized me. Thus, I kinda hated this book—no one’s fault but my own taste.
Reads like Homesick for Another World if you liked that.
Reads like Homesick for Another World if you liked that.
December 25, 2024
i loved this perhaps even more than i loved boys of alabama and YOU KNOW how much i loved boys of alabama!!! seriously not one skip in this collection. i want to go on a hot date with genevieve hudson and we can swap bible belt horror stories and drink sweet tea and say EXACTLY over and over again
September 24, 2018
Pretend We Live Here is a beautifully written collection. The characters that inhabit these stories are curious and quirky and sweet and strong with a level of complexity that lives off the page. Each story moved and surprised me. I was rapt.
July 27, 2019
Probably 3.5 stars. It was all very interesting and Hudson is definitely talented. Weeeeird.
October 25, 2018
Favorite stories: Date Book, Adorno.
January 8, 2019
3.5 stars with the caveat that reviewing a short story collection is not simple or straightforward. Not every story will be amazing (though if you're reading this and you know of a short story collection that contains only 5 star stories, please let me know!) and it would be boring to read a collection of stories similar to each other.
That being said, there is a lot that Hudson offers in this collection. What works is the way desire is described: something like a sharp pain in the chest that is fleeting but memorable. Also working are the sort of mystical (?) elements, like the placement of "eyes" on the body and their reliability and perspective. The way Hudson tells a story in Possum and Holes feels relatable and real, like you knew the story already but just needed someone to recall it exquisitely.
I was lost on some of the specific subculture stories, namely the one about vegan activists (Binary Star came to mind right away) and the punk scene in the last story. Perhaps readers more familiar with these places who could fill in the gaps would be better equipped to enjoy these.
I'm glad I read this collection, and I would read more from this author in the future.
That being said, there is a lot that Hudson offers in this collection. What works is the way desire is described: something like a sharp pain in the chest that is fleeting but memorable. Also working are the sort of mystical (?) elements, like the placement of "eyes" on the body and their reliability and perspective. The way Hudson tells a story in Possum and Holes feels relatable and real, like you knew the story already but just needed someone to recall it exquisitely.
I was lost on some of the specific subculture stories, namely the one about vegan activists (Binary Star came to mind right away) and the punk scene in the last story. Perhaps readers more familiar with these places who could fill in the gaps would be better equipped to enjoy these.
I'm glad I read this collection, and I would read more from this author in the future.
December 21, 2023
oh what fun it is to read an author's short story collection after reading their first novel and uncover their obsessions (she LOVES sugar, and returns to masculinity, violence, the south, girlhood obsession, lesbian discoverance....) and see the little seeds of a novel to come....
but for real i think this short story collection was better than boys of alabama. hudson excels at lingering in the destabilized moment (often cutting us off at the crest of change), in riding an arc of emotion and image, in embellishing worlds linked by vivid strange language. i feel like i have so much to learn from this collection - honestly it is how i want to be writing! sitting on the line between magical realism and the strangeness of reality, filled with INCREDIBLE lyricism, full of tangled and incomprehensible endings, motivated by emotional arcs instead of narrative ones. reminds me a lot of ling ma's stories in bliss montage, but a little more grounded in reality.
i also think hudson is writing lesbians the way i want to write lesbians (in a gay boy way @ maya and olivia) and i feel like she just GETS IT. and is exploring gender in such a possibility-expanding and magical way.
i especially liked bad dangerous - pregnancy wooo
read this read this read this!
but for real i think this short story collection was better than boys of alabama. hudson excels at lingering in the destabilized moment (often cutting us off at the crest of change), in riding an arc of emotion and image, in embellishing worlds linked by vivid strange language. i feel like i have so much to learn from this collection - honestly it is how i want to be writing! sitting on the line between magical realism and the strangeness of reality, filled with INCREDIBLE lyricism, full of tangled and incomprehensible endings, motivated by emotional arcs instead of narrative ones. reminds me a lot of ling ma's stories in bliss montage, but a little more grounded in reality.
i also think hudson is writing lesbians the way i want to write lesbians (in a gay boy way @ maya and olivia) and i feel like she just GETS IT. and is exploring gender in such a possibility-expanding and magical way.
i especially liked bad dangerous - pregnancy wooo
read this read this read this!
July 29, 2022
I'd give them 3.5. Some I quite liked, such as the first one set in Alabama about going to a faith healer. Others were quite strange, like the one about someone with eyes in the back of her head. The stories about transgender youth seem especially important. I enjoyed the first person perspectives, and listening to their inner thoughts, as well as the small bits of dialogue, which felt right-on to me.
I got a bit tired of her descriptions of sunrises and sunsets, and a bit freaked out by her description of some rather dangerous behavior among young people, and people living on "the edge," but I suppose there are people like that and it's important to write about them.
I read the stories because I really loved her Boys of Alabama, which I encourage folks to check out. Obviously Hudson is very talented and writes about subjects not covered by most writers.
I got a bit tired of her descriptions of sunrises and sunsets, and a bit freaked out by her description of some rather dangerous behavior among young people, and people living on "the edge," but I suppose there are people like that and it's important to write about them.
I read the stories because I really loved her Boys of Alabama, which I encourage folks to check out. Obviously Hudson is very talented and writes about subjects not covered by most writers.
January 6, 2024
The word that best characterizes these short stories: yearning.
Each one stands on its own, but I loved how they flowed together. Similar geographies (the PNW, Alabama, and Amsterdam each make multiple appearances) and similar experiences of desire and dysphoria make threads that tie the stories together. I especially loved how embodied each narrator felt and the physicality that anchors the stories.
I've been reading more short story collections recently, and mostly enjoying them. However it's difficult for me to *love* collections because inevitably there's a handful of stories in a collection that don't resonate with me as much. That said, the majority in "Pretend We Live Here" really did grab me and keep me engaged. Favorites in this collection: "Holes," "Bad Dangerous," "Date Book," and "Transplant."
Each one stands on its own, but I loved how they flowed together. Similar geographies (the PNW, Alabama, and Amsterdam each make multiple appearances) and similar experiences of desire and dysphoria make threads that tie the stories together. I especially loved how embodied each narrator felt and the physicality that anchors the stories.
I've been reading more short story collections recently, and mostly enjoying them. However it's difficult for me to *love* collections because inevitably there's a handful of stories in a collection that don't resonate with me as much. That said, the majority in "Pretend We Live Here" really did grab me and keep me engaged. Favorites in this collection: "Holes," "Bad Dangerous," "Date Book," and "Transplant."
April 18, 2022
Outrageously creative!!
Really enjoyed the stories in this book. Reading them reminded me that I want(ed) to be a writer! Still can, maybe still will.
Lots of crazy and creative imagery in her stories. Sometimes very raw, but all good. Author has a great way of stringing words and sentences and concepts together that don’t normally belong, the end resulting in a pretty wild and crazy ride! Very original. ☺️
Really enjoyed the stories in this book. Reading them reminded me that I want(ed) to be a writer! Still can, maybe still will.
Lots of crazy and creative imagery in her stories. Sometimes very raw, but all good. Author has a great way of stringing words and sentences and concepts together that don’t normally belong, the end resulting in a pretty wild and crazy ride! Very original. ☺️
September 23, 2018
A wonderful debut collection of short stories that captures the contemporary culture and confusions of lesbian identity. Hudson's voice is powerful and searching - she is an author to watch as she continues to develop and publish.
September 30, 2024
A concise collection of bizarre short stories, with some brilliant imagery and intriguingly problematic characters, but felt like most stories were too short to fully engage with, or were just a little too purposely weird.
November 8, 2018
I bought this book because of the title and it was more then I could hope for. Extreemly funny but also deeply touching.
March 25, 2019
"Transplant" stands out: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
July 5, 2019
Deliciously queer. 3.5 stars
July 6, 2019
Check out my review on Glassworks: http://www.rowanglassworks.org/book-r...
January 13, 2020
Loved almost every minute
October 8, 2020
So many great stories, great characters definetly became one of my favorite books.
July 13, 2021
Really 3.5 stars. Some were much better than others. So, as a short story collection, it was solidly good, with a few gems.
Read
November 8, 2022Loved God Hospital and Boy Box the most.
Read
November 3, 2024officially dnfing this unfortunately.
March 5, 2025
I’m sorry zoe but I Really did not like this…
June 22, 2025
3.5
okay the vibes in this entire collection were just so great: queer southerners, lots of talk of gender, discovering your own and the confusion of it, lots of crushes on older women, women who are no good for you, lots of coming of age stories in here which everyone knows is my jam. some of the endings fell flat and some of the stories' meanings completely flew over my head, but the vibes man the vibes!!
okay the vibes in this entire collection were just so great: queer southerners, lots of talk of gender, discovering your own and the confusion of it, lots of crushes on older women, women who are no good for you, lots of coming of age stories in here which everyone knows is my jam. some of the endings fell flat and some of the stories' meanings completely flew over my head, but the vibes man the vibes!!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews