The Age of Calamities

Ahmad debuts with an ambitious collection of stories that take novel approaches to significant moments in history. The opener, “Let’s Play Dead,” is a clever and mischevious retelling of Anne Boleyn’s 1536 beheading after her conviction on false charges of adultery and treason. The executioner has a tough time getting the job done, which presages the story’s fantastical twist, as Anne’s body spasms back to life and she reattaches her head, then goes on to survive subsequent executions. In “The Houseguest,” an actor plays Lizzie Borden, who was accused of killing her father and stepmother with an axe in 1892, in a film called Axe-Woman, which spawns a popular franchise (as one fan writes in an online review, “seven thumbs up / im growing more thumbs in a vat so i can give it so many goddamn thumbs up”). “Choose Your Own Apocalypse,” written in the second person, takes place in Los Alamos, N.Mex., in 1945, where a woman scientist dreads the testing and use of the atomic bomb and reckons with the “part-physicist, part-mystic” appeal of Dr. Oppenheimer (“You’d assumed, with enough time and careful observation, that you might absorb this enigmatic patina as well. You were incorrect”). With each story, Ahmad offers a satisfying exploration of feminine defiance. The result is arresting. (Jan.)