220 books
—
342 voters
Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
Start by marking “Black Light” as Want to Read:
Black Light
by
With raw, poetic ferocity, Kimberly King Parsons exposes desire’s darkest hollows—those hidden places where most of us are afraid to look. In this debut collection of enormously perceptive and brutally unsentimental short stories, Parsons illuminates the ache of first love, the banality of self-loathing, the scourge of addiction, the myth of marriage, and the magic and ine
...more
Get A Copy
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Reader Q&A
To ask other readers questions about
Black Light,
please sign up.
Popular Answered Questions
Community Reviews
Showing 1-30
Start your review of Black Light
***NOVEMBER 2019 UPDATE*** This delightful book has unseated the presumptive champion to become my annual six-stars-of-five bestestest read of the year!
AND it was a 2019 NBA longlister...AND it's in the 2020 Tournament of Books!
Don't start this read if you're not ready to go there. You know the "there" I mean, that there that Gertrude Stein railed against not being there in Oakland, California, circa 1920. Or today, for all I know or care. The there you're going with Author Parsons is the there ...more
AND it was a 2019 NBA longlister...AND it's in the 2020 Tournament of Books!
Don't start this read if you're not ready to go there. You know the "there" I mean, that there that Gertrude Stein railed against not being there in Oakland, California, circa 1920. Or today, for all I know or care. The there you're going with Author Parsons is the there ...more
Aug 16, 2019
Sandy *The world could end while I was reading and I would never notice*
rated it
really liked it
EXCERPT: I'm usually nervous in cars. Whether I'm driving or riding, I can't seem to forget that I'm in a little shell,hurtling along. I want a death that comes from the inside, something I won't have to watch as it's happening - a clot turned loose in my brain, a glossy organ seizing up and shuddering in secret. Car wrecks are shattered windshields and jutting bones, the listless highway patrol scooping bits of you and not-you off the asphalt, zipping the whole mess into a bag. But when Bo is d
...more
I think I will be a dissenting voice for these stories. I found them to be repetitive in ways that were unpleasant.
So much fatphobia, either from a self-directed perspective or other-directed, but all from people who hate fatness and largeness, equating it with disgusting, unclean, lesser-than. The author may be making a point but who wants to read that over and over? In the first story, a woman is larger than her medical student boyfriend, who lectures her in micro-aggressive ways about her sto ...more
So much fatphobia, either from a self-directed perspective or other-directed, but all from people who hate fatness and largeness, equating it with disgusting, unclean, lesser-than. The author may be making a point but who wants to read that over and over? In the first story, a woman is larger than her medical student boyfriend, who lectures her in micro-aggressive ways about her sto ...more
I read this book for Lambda Literary, where my full review can be found.
Caustic and biting, Kimberly King Parsons’ debut collection Black Light takes an unflinching look at the manifold ways girls and young women adroitly navigate a culture determined to demean them. Across twelve succinct stories the collection fully renders the sardonic voices of teens and twentysomethings fed up with stultifying suburbs and patronizing men. The heroines frenetically veer between bravado and insecurity; they b ...more
Caustic and biting, Kimberly King Parsons’ debut collection Black Light takes an unflinching look at the manifold ways girls and young women adroitly navigate a culture determined to demean them. Across twelve succinct stories the collection fully renders the sardonic voices of teens and twentysomethings fed up with stultifying suburbs and patronizing men. The heroines frenetically veer between bravado and insecurity; they b ...more
National Book Award Longlist 2019. A black light makes visible that which is invisible in natural light. What is more, it causes facial features to look ugly—even grotesque. Parsons focuses her black light on the poor and marginalized in these dozen short stories. Their lives are messy. They may be addicted. They may lie and cheat. There is a loneliness and emptiness in these teenage/twenty-something characters that matches the semi-rural Texas where these stories take place.
Parsons' raw, fierce ...more
Parsons' raw, fierce ...more
Is Friday Night Lights meets Ottessa Moshfegh a thing? Because this collection is kind of like that: unafraid of being dark or weird or gross, and set within the wandering, vacant emptiness of Texas, or anyplace far enough away for you to feel like there's no one else around. These are my favorite kinds of stories, with sharp, surprising sentences and characters full of wanting and loneliness, resourcefulness and humor.
Like if a sucker punch were a pleasant surprise somehow. "Foxes" was particularly vicious (guitar shred), but I didn't want any of these stories to end, which is quite a thing to say about a debut collection. Or any collection.
This short story collection was an interesting mix of the dark and gritty with the mundane. These stories center around the lives of the poor and the marginalized. The collection overall was a bit uneven with some stories not as strong as the others. 3.5⭐️
Tournament of Books Longlist
New to Me in 2020
Parsons short story collection Black Light reads like a forensic examination exposing the grit the grime and all the pieces of ourselves we leave behind in this life. Set mainly in rural Texas and centered on the experiences of women, these are mournable stories. You have daughters abandoned by their fathers, children unsure of which version of their mother awaits them at home, girls rejected by their lovers and women whose lives are directed by their ...more
New to Me in 2020
Parsons short story collection Black Light reads like a forensic examination exposing the grit the grime and all the pieces of ourselves we leave behind in this life. Set mainly in rural Texas and centered on the experiences of women, these are mournable stories. You have daughters abandoned by their fathers, children unsure of which version of their mother awaits them at home, girls rejected by their lovers and women whose lives are directed by their ...more
This book is the best. A fever dream with grip. No one writes a sentence like Kimberly King Parsons.
A debut that entertains, stuns, and dazzles at every risk-taking turn. This is short story as art and it's mind-boggling that the two best stories, Glow Hunter (a sensory trip) and Starlite (a seedy hotel masterpiece), were not published before this book's release, making your purchase of this collection mandatory. Parsons is a force and her perfect blend of humor, longing, propulsive style, and humid southern atmospherics makes Black Light one of the best books of the year. I mean, holy shit, p
...more
Weird. Unsettling. Brutal. Blunt. Savage. Off-kilter. Dreamy. Luminous. Vivid. Odd. Effing glorious. I'm obsessed with it. And I found a new favorite author.
(Review to come, I think)
(Review to come, I think)
This is a collection of short stories primarily set in a semi-rural working class Texas, where there are quantities of both insects and grime. The characters in these stories are primarily children and young women negotiating lives that are marked by insecurity, whether emotional, parental or financial. Despite this common thread, the stories are varied and very interesting. While I liked Parsons's stories set in this world, the two stories that had the most impact were the two that step outside
...more
In Black Light, Parsons mines the dingy side of life: the messy, the worn, the dirty. These stories are populated with the poor, the addicted, the liars, the wounded, the cheaters. Parsons deftly strings together this handful of compelling stories out of that muck of darkness. I blasted through this book in an evening, mesmerized by her stark stories, her hapless characters, the muddied insight into pallid lives, the feeble hope for redemption. Through all the darkness, there is clarity here: a
...more
This collection doesn't shy away from the grotesque and beautiful. Parsons' characters are entirely relatable. Sad, bored, difficult, destructive, endearing and often hilarious. These stories have some of the best opening and closing sentences I've ever read (and everything in between is pretty damn good, too).
Nope
I’ll start with the obvious: I *loved* this book. It does a service to the short story form. The characters in these stories are so weird and so full of flaws and so human; they are like thick oil paintings with too much color, saturated and alive. It’s really incredible to be able to pull this off, it’s like the trick of the short story that’s so hard to figure out, and Parsons does it beautifully. A lot of the characters and the plots are difficult, sometimes downright unlikeable, but the writ
...more
4.5 stars.
I first had a black light in high school, when my fandom of Pink Floyd reached peak, near-obsessive levels. It seemed as though it were part of the wannabe stoner starter kit, replete with incense, UV-activated posters, and a copy of Dark Side of the Moon. And while I was immediately fascinated by ultraviolet radiation, it wasn’t so much because of its fluorescence – though those posters I bought at my local headshop did look pretty fucking rad – than its ability to make the invisible ...more
I first had a black light in high school, when my fandom of Pink Floyd reached peak, near-obsessive levels. It seemed as though it were part of the wannabe stoner starter kit, replete with incense, UV-activated posters, and a copy of Dark Side of the Moon. And while I was immediately fascinated by ultraviolet radiation, it wasn’t so much because of its fluorescence – though those posters I bought at my local headshop did look pretty fucking rad – than its ability to make the invisible ...more
I'm not sure what it is with contemporary short story collections from the North American Anglosphere, but I often feel deflated/bored. This has received critical acclaim and good reviews and is now on the Tournament of Books longlist. There's no denying that King Parsons can write a perfect sentence. However, despite the raw, gritty atmosphere and focus on people on the margins, it still came off like a cool, nonchalant, workshopped-to-death collection that left me feeling empty.
Don’t miss Kimberly King Parson's BLACK LIGHT out in August. Queer Texas stories. From the “gimcrack ache” of unrequited love to the glow of a second night together, Parsons transcribes what’s irreducible in all of us.
this book was so gd good. ugh. will i ever get over it?
there were a couple stories that didn't captivate me as hard but for the most part i loved every single one from start to finish. the way parsons describes things is incredible. the details and the dialogues are touching and real as hell and she honestly writes like exactly how i want to write but way better than i could ever write. there were a few times where i'd finish up a story and have to sit there for a solid 10-15 minutes like 'wow ...more
there were a couple stories that didn't captivate me as hard but for the most part i loved every single one from start to finish. the way parsons describes things is incredible. the details and the dialogues are touching and real as hell and she honestly writes like exactly how i want to write but way better than i could ever write. there were a few times where i'd finish up a story and have to sit there for a solid 10-15 minutes like 'wow ...more
Every story here is on the cusp--the language, the settings, the lives of longing and daring, the awkward and raw relationships. I love the title: think about what shines under weird and dark light. Parsons explores the Texas backdrop with her foot on the gas. Great collection!
One of the best short story collections I’ve ever read. I devoured the first 100 pages in one sitting, then the last 100 pages in another sitting. I couldn’t put it down either time. This is a book of stories about ordinary people - ordinary people in various states of deprivation, despondency, raw longing, chaos, love.
We visit grimy motel rooms, the stuffy dorms of an all-girls school, the mushroom-laden grass off the side of a Texas highway, the stale reception area of a realtor’s office. ...more
We visit grimy motel rooms, the stuffy dorms of an all-girls school, the mushroom-laden grass off the side of a Texas highway, the stale reception area of a realtor’s office. ...more
Unfortunately, no matter how much you love an author a short story collection will be uneven. As readers we all know the score. Black Light is the debut story collection by Kimberly King Parsons. When I started this collection, I was unfamiliar with the author. These stories explore the human condition in all of it’s ugliness. I would be lying if I said I loved every story but Ms Parsons voice and skill as a writer made each story a compulsive read. The soft no and we don’t come natural to it wo
...more
Well it finally happened!! I finally found a book of short stories that I not only liked, I LOVED! I knew if I kept trying it would happen. I saw this book mentioned in the long list for the National Book Award and once I read the blurb I was hooked. I was mesmerized by Parsons’ writing. I don’t even know if I could pick a favorite story because they all spoke to me. What a wonderful talent, can’t wait to read more!
This book changed what I thought a short story collection could do with character development. King Parsons sees people and the world in a way few other writers do. She holds her deeply flawed, messy characters up to the Texas light, allowing them their full humanity. The result is a collection full of people who are sometimes awkward, maddening, or disgusting, but always beautiful. This is in no small part thanks to King Parson's deftness with language. Her sentences, like her characters, will
...more
Burned through this one. I know so many of the images will stick with me for a long time and the language was really special. I also fully loved the gay shit because THAT'S WHO I AM--but really, it was thoughtful and heartbreaking and beautiful.
I absolutely loved this book! Kimberly King parsons is a hugely talented author, and I can't wait to read what she comes up with next.
Flavorful stories, lyrical voice, portrait sentences. Short story collection goodness.
If you're a fan of short stories, chances are, you remember when you first read Denis Johnson's Jesus's Son. I still remember the shock this collection hit me with, circa 1995--the sense that I'd never read such absolutely top-shelf that was so transgressive. That's how I felt after reading Black Light, which begs a question: How exactly, in 2019, does this collection manage to feel transgressive? Like Johnson, Parsons writes about drugs, but her characters' drug use isn't what defines them; ins
...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prize Readers: 2019 NBA Fiction Longlist: Black Light | 3 | 14 | Sep 30, 2019 01:31PM | |
| Black Light Book Tour | 1 | 9 | Jul 11, 2019 09:29AM |
Readers also enjoyed
Kimberly King Parsons is the author of the short story collection Black Light (Vintage), which was longlisted for both the 2019 National Book Award and the 2019 Story Prize, and is a finalist for the 2020 Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, the 2020 Texas Institute of Letters Best Work of First Fiction Award, and the 2020 Oregon Book Award. Parsons is a recipient of fellowships from Columbia Uni
...more
Related Articles
Diverse voices and sparkling debuts dominate today's contemporary short story collections. For this roundup, we took a look at the ...
74 likes · 7 comments
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
“You are sweet and smart and definitely not extremely strange. You are lovable and deserving of love--everybody is.”
—
1 likes
“Death is just a countdown to the calm”
—
0 likes
More quotes…
