The Museum of Future Mistakes

Gapinski (The Last Dinosaurs of Portland) dips into fabulism in this arresting collection. In “Her Fingernails Are Haunted,” a woman hears voices from her fingernails, which fuel her hypochondria and confirm her negative self-image (“Bone cancer.... Only a matter of time. No doctor can save you. Also, your crow’s feet are getting worse”). The brisk “Kitchenly Perfection” follows a couple who find a mysterious human face half-buried in the plaster behind their kitchen tiles that turns out to belong to a previous owner of the house who opposed the abolition of slavery. Gapinski acutely catalogs the foibles of human nature and stages moments of connection through strange and sometimes surreptitious events. In “Physical Therapy,” a man grows vines on his body, which attach themselves to the vines growing on the cute guy he’s falling for; the title character of “The Elevator Elf” helps the narrator by giving him things like a ballpoint pen, which comes in handy when the narrator lends it to the coworker he has a crush on. Those with an appetite for the weird will relish this. (Oct.)