Exit Zero: Stories

A Best Book of the Year • Boston Globe • Literary Hub • Electric Literature

“[Marie-Helene] Bertino blurs the line between writer and magician . . . Dazzling.” ―Molly Young, The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

Electric Literature’s Best Short Story Collection of 2025
A Must-Read: The New York Times Book Review, Bustle, Harper's Bazaar, Esquire, Chicago Review of Books, Our Culture, Literary Hub, Book Riot
Long-listed for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize
Long-listed for the Story Prize
Winner of a PEN/O. Henry Prize: “Exit Zero”
Included in The Best American Short Stories: “Viola in Midwinter”

Twelve delightfully strange, haunting stories from the acclaimed, oracular author of Beautyland.

Death-shaped entities―with all of their humor and strangeness― haunt the twelve stories in Exit Zero. Vampires, ghost girls, fathers, blank spaces, day-old peaches, and famous paintings all pierce through their world into ours, reminding us to pay attention! and look alive! and offering many other flashes of wisdom from the oracle and author of Beautyland, Marie-Helene Bertino.