Debut Novella Out Now
Something Is Always Happening Somewhere
By Kelly McClure
Dale Travers and her wife Gina moved from their tiny apartment in Brooklyn to a newly mortgaged ranch style home in Long Beach with the hope of living there forever. When one tragic night changes everything, Dale attempts to pick up the pieces but quickly realizes that life is a dark and terrifying place without the one person who gave it any meaning.
Something Is Always Happening Somewhere is a visceral tale of grief with horror elements.
About Kelly
Kelly McClure is a writer and editor for Salon who lives in New Orleans with her wife Lindsey, dog Dracula, and two cats, Tokyo and Rocky. Her work has been featured in Vulture, The A.V. Club, Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, Nylon, Vice, and elsewhere. In 2017 Budget Press published a zine anthology of her short stories titled Terrible Stories. Something Is Always Happening Somewhere is her first book.
What People Are Saying About Something Is Always Happening Somewhere
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MAUDLIN HOUSE
“Locked, forced open, slammed shut; McClure’s book introduces us to a number of doors we are met with throughout our lifetime. Some we enter and others we keep closed. Something Is Always Happening Somewhere is a tale of horror on self-sufficiency and the resiliency of the human spirit. McClure asks us to confront the edges that life pushes us towards and the things we find solace in clinging to. It approaches the belief in starting over, while still being haunted.”
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CRIME READS
“That’s the magic of writing. This book is upsetting people. It’s making people feel. And that’s all I wanted for this. In writing Something Is Always Happening Somewhere I, to put it crassly, hoped that people would one day read it and come away from the experience feeling like shit.”
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Bust Magazine
“McClure’s debut novella is a raw and unfiltered exploration of trauma and grief. The story begins when the protagonist, Dale Travers, undergoes an unexpected loss and traumatic experience after her wife is raped and killed. The plot shows us what happens when a conventional life is turned upside down by a random, tragic event. The language and style of the novella mirrors its plot; it is a tale that is chaotic and rough around the edges. Dale’s story unfolds with unexpected twists and turns that remind us of the unpredictability in this world. McClure has her finger on the pulse of the exhausting and existential angst that comes with living in grief. Dale must combat stereotypes and violence as a gay woman in addition to her newfound grief and trauma in the wake of her wife’s death. In 130 pages, McClure leaves her readers wondering what recovery and resilience after serious loss look like, and she gives a glimpse into the aftermath of a life riddled with sudden pain.”
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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fans of Ottessa Moshfegh and other authors of bleak fiction will like “Something Is Always Happening Somewhere”
Things go from bad to worse in this dark novella about a woman whose life unravels after her wife is murdered. Just 130 pages long, it is a well-crafted study of grief that doesn’t offer a shred of redemption. And yet! There is something so compelling about protagonist Dale Travers, that I felt glued to her side as she spirals, each move she makes more fatalistic than the last.
Reading “Something is Always Happening Somewhere” makes me eager to see what McClure does next.