You Must Be This Happy to Enter — Elizabeth Crane

“Crane seems to be carving out a younger, brassier, less dystopic territory to complement the fiction of George Saunders and David Foster Wallace.” -- The Quarterly Conversation
 
In her third short story collection, following When the Messenger is Hot and All This Heavenly Glory, Elizabeth Crane presents a quirky cast of characters all searching for, showing off, or seriously questioning what makes them happy. There's a woman who speaks in all exclamation points, one enamored by her boyfriend's closet, a zombie reality TV star, a mother whose baby turns into Ethan Hawke, and a woman whose moods are printed on her forehead.
 
Whether breathlessly enthusiastic, serenely calm, or really concentrating right now on their issues, Elizabeth Crane's characters shine a spotlight on our spirituality-starved, self-improvement-seeking, celebrity-obsessed culture.
 
“In her third collection of inventive short stories, Crane continues to ingeniously satirize our muddled quest for meaning in all the wrong places.” -- Booklist
 
“A well-crafted collection of short stories, one whose clarity of tone and theme unites each and every piece into a cohesive whole. At a time when it seems almost antediluvian to be optimistic, Crane's sincerity stands as a bewitching reminder that there is more to literature than tragedy.” -- Bookslut
 
“Zombies, time travelers, reality TV contestants and even a few normalish folks populate the pages of Elizabeth Crane's quirky, charming new collection.” -- PopMatters