On My Aunt’s Shallow Grave White Roses Have Already Bloomed

The 16 stories in Mitsora’s brief but spellbinding collection are suspended somewhere between ancient myth and contemporary reality, often focusing on unspoken moments and random encounters. In “The Uninhabited Body,” two riders on a bus enter into an immediate, tacit agreement to love each other for the few minutes until they both disembark and return to their lives. “Downtown Athens” also follows a random pair of people suddenly attracted to each other; they explore the city together while discussing their shared connections to religion and mythology. “The Cat That Can’t Dance” explores the psyche of a man obsessed with a woman in his neighborhood: he first pines after her from the house of the aunt he murdered, and then begins a sort of relationship with her in the garden where his aunt is buried—though the relationship unfolds very differently than he expects. Mitsora’s writing is powerful in its strangeness. The stories could easily be described as the subtitle of one of them, open to various artistic interpretations: “Could be a drowned woman’s suicide note/ Could be the scribblings of an opium eater.” Though a reader may be unsure where the stories are heading, they are beautiful, small revelations worth surrendering to. (Sept.)