An Archaeology of Holes by Stacy Hardy
An Archaeology of Holes is an excavation and an evisceration of love, loneliness, alienation and what it means to be human. Working between fabulism, dark realism and autofiction, these stories propose the creative and liberatory possibilities of holes, which are everywhere: in bodies, in the ransacked earth, in erased lives and memories, in forgotten loves and lovers and the endless massacres.

“I welcome the way Stacy Hardy’s fiction gives me the shivers, disturbs my understanding of myself and the world around me. Her stories guide me, sometimes lodestar, other times mischievous will-o-wisps, always revelatory. Through lenses both forensic and fantastic, Hardy holds up to her strange light the human body and the body politic. For fans of writers like Clarice Lispector, Leonora Carrington, Rikki Ducornet, Kathryn Davis, or Carmen Maria Machado, for fans of crossing the veil to slip off their skin and dancing around in their bones, of picking through their own trash, of rediscovering themselves after despair, heartbreak, and loneliness, Archaeology of Holes is a most perfect companion.”

— Danielle Pafunda, Author of Along the Road Everyone Must Travel, Winner of the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize

“Audacious and masterful, every story collected in Stacy Hardy’s An Archaeology of Holes delivers a new and unexpected euphoria. Each story promises intellectual enticement and emotional entanglement, brutal and ugly and real: Stacy Hardy is prophetess and I will follow her anywhere.”

— Lily Hoang, Author of Changing, Winner of the PEN Open Book Award

“These wild, weird, amazing stories create life, create the best and most vibrant art, out of the many ways that death is absorbed into our worlds, our minds, our bodies. From bullet holes to black holes, from mouth holes to safe holes to buildings with holes in their centers, Stacy Hardy’s writing blasts its way from absence into vital and unforgettable presence. When the extreme violence of misogyny and racialized capitalism becomes a normal part of our life and landscape, it is art and great writing that helps us see both our damage and our potential escape routes. Archaeology of Holes is a collection that will stay with me for a very long time.”

— Daniel Borzutzky, Author of The Performance of Becoming Human, Winner of the National Book Award