Small Scale Sinners

Sohail explores female desire and relationships in this electrifying debut story collection. In “Hair,” an 18-year-old girl causes her boyfriend to recoil when she cuts off her hair to make a wig for his mother, who lost hers from an illness. The narrator of “Sisters” considers how her choice to leave her home in Pakistan for UC Berkeley affected her bond with her older sister (“Nobody has taught me that living a life that is entirely your own is also an act of mourning”). Some of the stories enter gothic, fever-dream territory: in “Basic Training,” two sisters, described by Sohail as “only small-scale sinners,” lure a small girl into a child-soldier training camp where children are driven to orgiastic shows of violence; “The Park” finds a ghostly mother-daughter duo exacting revenge on men who harm women. The occasional forays into genre fiction never feel gimmicky and instead serve to expand the field on which Sohail examines the conflict between duty and independence. Readers will be excited to see what Sohail does next. Agent: Samantha Shea, Georges Borchardt. (Sept.)