James R. Gapinski in Conversation With Alissa Hattman

Gruesome scenarios take a tender turn; beautiful moments become sources of derision. Winner of the BOA Short Fiction Prize, James R. Gapinski’s The Museum of Future Mistakes (BOA Editions) is packed with inventive narrative choices and sharp lyricism, upending expectations on every page. In “Brother and Not-Brother,” the residents of an entire city transform into perfect copies of the narrator’s deceased brother; these uncanny doppelgängers spark meditations on childhood scars, grief taking root within the body, and how painful memories can [...]