What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us

The stories in Laura van den Berg’s rich and inventive debut illuminate the intersection of the mythic and the mundane.

A failed actress takes a job as a Bigfoot impersonator. A grieving missionary becomes obsessed with a creature rumoured to live in the forests of the Congo. And, in the title story, a young woman travelling with her scientist mother in Madagascar confronts her burgeoning sexuality and her dream of becoming a long-distance swimmer.

Rendered with grace and precision, this breathtaking collection is narrated by women yearning for absolution, for solace, for the flash of extraordinary that will forever alter their lives.