Emmy-nominated writer and television producer Kim Samek's fascinating I Am the Ghost Here gathers 12 quirky, poignant stories laced with intriguing speculative elements. Certain notable narrative threads repeat: women concerned about being good mothers or good Thai daughters, environmental degradation, reality TV. All feature female protagonists, and most are written in first person, as if Samek is returning agency to women facing otherwise impossible, out-of-control challenges.
A 36-year-old mother turns into scrambled eggs a few months after giving birth in "Egg Mother." A woman desperate to be free from the pain of her debilitating illness risks time travel, hoping to be a more physically involved parent, in "Return." And in "The Cloud," blackouts during an unbearable Los Angeles heat wave cause women to lose various limbs that (usually) reappear when power is restored.
The protagonist of "The MILF Hotel" appears on a reality show about older widows and younger men, after 18 years of intense motherhood, mostly as a solo parent. Meanwhile, in "Sven," a woman picks up an abandoned earpiece from a park bench and becomes the star of her own reality show. And "Everything Disappears When You're Having Fun" depicts a workaholic television producer reluctantly falling for the regretful Craigslist buyer of her uncomfortable office chair.
Within the brevity of her stories, Samek creates fabulously multilayered worlds featuring automatic vacuums equipped with hidden cameras, puppeteers for hire who transform people into better versions of themselves, a rampant disease that causes victims to excise major organs then carry their body parts in mason jars, and strangers who become lovers over a plastic-eating obsession. Most convincing throughout is her limitless imagination. --Terry Hong