Tell Me Pleasant Things about Immortality

Contents Cover Other Titles Title Page Copyright Dedication Contents Happy Birthday! Tell Me Pleasant Things about Immortality The Ugliest Girls Sinking Houses Wreck Beach The Noodley Delight The Basket-Swimmers Red-Tongued Ghosts Furniture Colony Farm Confessions Kind Face, Cruel Heart Sorry, Sister Eunice A Bloodletting of Trees Acknowledgments Landmarks Cover Cover Title Page Table of Contents Start Copyright Print Page List i ii iii iv v vi vii 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 
 
 
 
 Praise for
 Tell Me Pleasant Things about Immortality
 
 “The stories in Tell Me Pleasant Things about Immortality will make you laugh, cry…and gasp. Here, Lindsay Wong has created an absurd symphony of tragedy and joy that leads Asian Canadian writing into uncharted and new, incredible directions. The horrible is hilarious, the tragic is titillating, the morbid is mirthful. In these stories you will find beauty, horror, pleasure, and play.”
 —Jenny Heijun Wills, author of Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related.
 “Tell Me Pleasant Things about Immortality is a truly original collection of short stories, a book that brims over with otherworldly creatures, disaster, humour, and the unassailable bonds of familial love and hate. Lindsay Wong asks us to accompany her characters as they fight, dream, and survive in worlds that are on the verge of collapsing. It’s a wild ride and I loved every second of it.”
 —Jen Sookfong Lee, author of Superfan and The Conjoined
 “From a hair-chomping grandma ghost to nine-tail fox demons who snack on frat boys, the women of Tell Me Pleasant Things about Immortality are moody, sharp-tongued, and subversive. With humour and mischief, Lindsay Wong spins horrifying tales across continents and centuries. These stories slither through uncanny worlds and dredge up deep feelings of alienation, longing, and shame. Eccentric and unforgettable.”
 —Pik-Shuen Fung, author of Ghost Forest
 “Fans of the black humour of Lindsay Wong’s debut memoir, The Woo-Woo, 
 ALSO BY LINDSAY WONG
 The Woo-Woo
 My Summer of Love and Misfortune
 
 
 
 
 
 
 PENGUIN
 an imprint of Penguin Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited
 Canada • USA • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China
 First published 2023
 Copyright © 2023 by Lindsay Wong
 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
 www.penguinrandomhouse.ca
 Publisher’s note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
 Title: Tell me pleasant things about immortality : stories / Lindsay Wong.
 Names: Wong, Lindsay, author.
 Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210309121 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210309245 | ISBN 9780735242364 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780735242371 (EPUB)
 Classification: LCC PS8645.O46175 T45 2023 | DDC C813/.6—dc23
 The following story was previously published in a different form: “Wreck Beach” was published under the name Vanessa Li in The Fiddlehead, No. 253 (Autumn 2012).