"Fantastic, imaginative, subversive"
- V. V. Ganeshananthan

"Electric"
- Akil Kumarasamy



Cover of The Goth House Experiment and other stories by SJ Sindu

Synopsis

In “Dark Academia and the Lesbian Masterdoc,” a millennial English professor facing mounting personal crises puts her energies into TikTok, but her newfound viral fame could wreck her already unstable life. In “Patriots'; Day,” a man trying to leave his marriage for the woman he loves finds himself caught up in larger currents of anti-Asian violence. In other stories, an array of loners and artists—a young poet haunted by the ghost of Oscar Wilde, a queer beer brewer, a boy with wings—struggle for connection and fulfillment in a world battered by the pandemic and reactionary politics.

Praise for Shakti

"A whirlwind of a collection. Bold, timely stories of what it means to live in this surreal world. Sindu’s writing is electric." — Akil Kumarasamy, author of Meet Us By the Roaring Sea

"What a fantastic, imaginative, subversive set of stories—probing the world and its people with questions and narratives that feel pulsingly alive and urgent, grounded in the world we know and also beautifully strange. In S.J. Sindu's hands, you will not only upend your assumptions but also name ideas and feelings you didn't know you had. Read this and emerge changed and hungry." — V. V. Ganeshananthan, author of Brotherless Night