Mouth: Stories
Puloma Ghosh
Astra House, 2024, 224 pages
$26.00

Reviewed by Margaret Zanmiller

Puloma Ghosh’s stories in Mouth are made to read in one sitting, preferably starting at dusk with a storm rolling in, so that you can fall deep into the haunted world Ghosh weaves. The short stories establish themes of carnal desire and passionate death. Readers are reminded of the shadow selves that follow all of us. Using powerful language, Ghosh feeds a world of destruction that leaves space for intimacy and closeness.

Mouth’s narrators honor the banal things that happen every day with incredibly detailed observations that effectively place the reader in the fictional world: the party on the porch that’s separate from the party inside, the way cold feels against our skin, a lover leaving quietly, without a fight. In many of Ghosh’s stories, we are let into inner worlds that are expressed outwardly without shame, and always with pain, curiosity, and desire. Pages are lined with fresh monsters the narrators want to join, be held by, and become. Readers are provided a healthy dose of intensely descriptive body horror.

Ghosh writes for bisexuals preoccupied with death, former or current emo kids, fans of the TV show Yellowjackets, the movie Bones and All, or the band My Chemical Romance. Ghosh writes for those whose loneliness has chewed on them, eaten them, and spit them back out. Stick with the collection; Ghosh’s stories grow stronger with each page turn. Soon enough, they are smoking on the edge of your bed, eating raw meat from your fridge, looking at you through the mirror, and asking you to walk into a black hole with them.

Margaret Zanmiller is a Saint Paul dyke with a BA in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies from the University of Minnesota.