If you like quirky premises for short stories, you’ll probably love this collection.

A single, childless old ladies excels as a bespoke grandmother for hire, but ultimately has doubts about this kind of spurious family relation.

Two brothers live in angst after their parents spontaneously combusted (treated as a mysterious but natural phenomenon in this story).

Three recent graduates with unemployable degrees spend months digging out a network of underground tunnels rather than reaching out to the world above ground.

A man is dying to see a circus act in which the performer shoots himself in the face with a gun but always comes back alive for the next show.

A woman who cannot stand owning objects happens to be the curator of the Museum of Whatnot, a collection of mundane objects other people had collected obsessively.

A serial pessimist and professional worrier works for a company called Worst-Case Scenario Inc. and offers the service of informing clients about the myriad ways life can go terribly wrong.

With most of the characters wrapped up in misery and apathy, these stories are powerful explorations of estrangement, grief, loneliness, boredom, and insecurity. Yes, most of them are sad, but there’s always a touch of dark humour, and the absurdity makes the plot completely unpredictable. Some stories are downright terrifying, but I’m glad the last few take a more uplifting turn. Overall, one hell of a ride I can’t recommend highly enough!

I first became aware of Kevin Wilson when I read his terrific novel Nothing to See Here last year. When I saw that a collection of his early short stories was being re-issued I decided I needed to read them too.

What a weirdly fantastic yet utterly realistic set of short stories they are! Each story is set in a world very like (but not entirely like) our own. People behave strangely, yet totally logically and in a human way. Each tale was fascinating - no duds among them and all thought-provokingly peculiar.

A delightful five-star read.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.

Disclosure: I loved 'Nothing to See Here'. Like, really loved it.

So when I saw a reissue of Kevin Wilson's short stories was being released, I couldn't have been handed it fast enough. But, I was disappointed.

Some of the stories in this collection are good. It starts really strong - in fact, I could've read a whole novel about the grandparent service and the people who work within it. But from there, the stories become less of the irreverent and quirky and become more...gross. The story about three twenty-somethings digging a hole is a brief respite among it. I have a particular bug bear with how the women are written in this book because, ultimately, they're written like shit. I won't mince words. Do better, man.

Not for me. I can only hope they were products of their time and his work has improved since then.

I have read and enjoyed all three of Kevin Wilson's novels, particularly his most recent, Nothing to See Here, for their darkness, humour, originality and surprising pathos. The same qualities are evident throughout Kevin Wilson's first collection of short stories, originally published in 2009 and many of which were written when he was at college.

In Wilson's novel The Family Fang, a character who is a writer explains that "these weird thoughts come into my head, and I don't even really want to think about it, but I can't let go of it until I take it as far as I can, until I reach some kind of ending, and then I can move on". Wilson could be talking about his own process, and in his Foreword to this edition, he compares short stories to "stealing a car, driving it as fast as you can, and crashing it into a tree, knowing you were always going to that very thing. And then you crawl out of the car, which is now mangled and smoking, and you realize that you aren't dead, that you're still alive. And you look at the car, and it's beautiful. And you walk away."

Over the course of this collection, Wilson takes us on some incredible rides, both beautiful and weird. The first collection in this story, "Grand Stand-In" is a personal favourite, as the narrator describes her work for a Nuclear Family Supplemental Provider as she is employed by families to stand in as grandmother to their children when their real grandmother is dead, ill, estranged or deficient in some other respect. Wilson takes us through some deliciously dark twists and turns before the story reaches its surprising conclusion. The final story, "Worst-Case Scenario", also involves an employee of an unusual organisation, who is asked to calculate worst-case scenarios for clients, which rarely bring them any peace of mind. Other bizarre workplaces in this collection include a Scrabble tiles factory (in which the narrator is required to collect as many Q tiles as they can find each day), and a Museum of Whatnot, visited each week by a doctor who studies the museum's collection of spoons.

A number of the other stories feature younger protagonists who are usually isolated from their peers in some way, including a reluctant cheerleader, two Quiz Bowl teammates who spend each lunchtime in the school library's A/V room testing each other on assorted trivia, and, in the title story, three recent graduates who spend their summer digging caves underneath one of their parents' gardens. This story reminded me of Truman Capote's "The Grass Harp", and many of the stories show an affinity with the Southern Gothic genre. Although we don't get to spend long in each of the worlds Wilson creates, each feels fully realised, with real commitment to the practicalities of each scenario - for instance, in 'Tunneling to the Center of the Earth', much consideration is given to how one gets rid of the vast quantities of dirt excavated, and what this might to do the local water table.

I would thoroughly recommend this enjoyable and consistently surprising collection of stories - one of the best I have read. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC to review!

A very interesting read! Some stories captured my attention a lot more than others, but every plot had some redeeming features.
The theme of the stories in this book actually reminded me a lot of Black Mirror, interesting, odd and curious stories that either intrigued, confused or left you feeling a little weary by the end.

Probably not the perfect read for everyone, but I'm glad I gave it a try!

This is a new edition of Kevin Wilson’s first short story collection comprising eleven pieces in all. He’s a writer with an affinity with the social misfit, a recurrent theme throughout, cropping up in many of the stories from Mortal Kombat about two teenage boys, both with a nerdish command of trivia, confused by the sexual exploration which threatens to destroy the only friendship each of them has, to the painfully awkward cheerleader of Go, Fight Win and the young museum curator in The Museum of Whatnot who not only prefers her obscure workplace which few visit but happily arranges the strange collections bequeathed it by eccentrics.

Wilson explores the human condition with its many foibles and idiosyncrasies, serving his stories up with a hefty dose of dark humour leavened with poignancy and compassion. Knowing that many of the stories were written when he was a student, my expectations weren’t particularly high but with one exception, all were enjoyable, replete with the off-the-wall characteristics I’ve come to expect from his fiction.

Nothing to See Here was one of my favourite books last year, and this collection of short stories has all the ingredients I loved in that novel: deliciously weird (an agency that supplies stand-in grandmothers, for example, or or a character whose job is to collect "Q" Scrabble tiles), imaginative, beautiful writing and although sometimes sad, ultimately uplifting. I think these stories will appeal to readers who are fans of George Saunders, and who like playful, speculative stories.

I had previously read the novel Nothing To See Here by Kevin Wilson so I was keen to read his short story collection Tunneling to the Center of the Earth. It's a strong collection and I enjoyed reading it. Quirky, unusual, edgy, surreal but very real and raw at the same time.

A very Wilsonesque collection of stories: dysfunctional families, spontaneous human combustion, surreal scenarios, and plenty of eccentric characters. Each story in this collection held my attention, and while they share similarities, they also showcase Wilson's range: from lighthearted tales (such as “Grand Stand-In” and “Tunneling to the Center of the Earth”) to more bittersweet stories (such as “Birds in the House”) and even ones that I can best describe as heartbreaking (“Mortal Kombat”).
Regardless of their tone, each story is permeated by surrealism. At times the surreal elements are overt (such as with the first story in this collection), while in other times they are more covert. Ordinary moments or exchanges are injected with a dose of the bizarre, and this weirdness was a delight to read. Wilson vividly renders his characters and their experiences (however unreal they were), and his mumblecore dialogues always rang true to life (even when the discussions veered in seemingly absurd territories).
This was a wonderful collection of short stories. They were extremely amusing and always surprising. Each story had a certain focus, and didn't meander in other directions, seeming committed to expanding on specific feelings or ideas. My favourite ones were “Mortal Kombat” (as sad as it was), “Birds in the House”, and “The Museum of Whatnot”.
Funny, original, and tender, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth is a marvellous collection of stories, one that I would thoroughly recommend it to readers who enjoyed other works by Wilson, such as Nothing to See Here.