Playing Nice Was Getting Me Nowhere (Alex Cothren, Pink Shorts Press)

Playing Nice Was Getting Me Nowhere is a collection of satirical stories by award-winning short fiction writer Alex Cothren and is one of the first releases from new independent publisher Pink Shorts Press. The collection not only includes short stories but also vignettes in a range of formats, including a university paper, an online forum, and end-of-shift notes. Cothren’s characters face a world that’s both absurd and disturbingly familiar: a man subscribes to an AI grocery restock service, a child’s parents are e-deported, an artist is hired to paint bleached coral reefs and a woman pays for virtual reality trauma porn. Each story is simultaneously unhinged and hits close to home in our era of climate change, precarious employment, AI and Trump. The tone is sarcastic and deadpan – if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. Cothren’s satirical take on modern-day horrors feels refreshing, particularly when our overwrought social media habits and the 24-hour news cycle have left us strung out with empathy fatigue. The rapid shifts in form can take some adjusting to, but for the most part, the variety is fun and interesting. Through these stories, Cothren critiques not only capitalism, new technologies and identity politics, but also our collective and individual responses to them. Playing Nice Was Getting Me Nowhere is an irreverent collection for fans of Black Mirror and Alexander Weinstein’s Universal Love.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Danielle Bagnato is a book reviewer and marketing and communications professional. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

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