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Book Summary and Reviews of Out of Body by Chris Vanjonack

Out of Body by Chris Vanjonack

Out of Body

Stories – Darkly Inventive Speculative Fiction of Ghosts, Mortality, and the Strangeness of Being Human

by Chris Vanjonack

  • Publishes:
  • Sep 22, 2026, 320 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

A wildly inventive collection of interconnected speculative stories—spanning the multiverse, demonic attachment, and life after death—from an electrifying new voice in fiction.

An aimless ghost haunts his ex-girlfriend for evidence that she's actually upset about his death.

A group of teens discovers a machine that purports to predict the best day of its users' lives.

A young woman is horrified to discover that an aggressive stranger she met on a night of bar-hopping now manifests in every photo that is taken of her.

A drunken posse descends into the woods in search of clowns that have been terrorizing their small town.

Chris Vanjonack's fiction is haunted not only by specters of death, but by the elusive questions of life, and above all, the wonder and horror of the infinite. Uncanny, surreal, and infectiously clever, the stories in this linked collection contain horrors great and small, fueled as much by the fantastic as by longing, dread, and all-too-human frailties.

Morbidly funny and brilliantly observed, Out of Body is an atmospheric, dead original feast for the senses.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Eerie, unhinged, and hilarious, these stories are the work of a true original. Chris Vanjonack is the best new writer I've encountered in a long while!" ―Dan Chaon, author of One of Us

"Steeped in wondrous weirdness and heart, Chris Vanjonack's stories take you into the most vulnerable nooks of his characters' humanity. These stories deliver wildly entertaining premises that unfold tenderly, poignantly and hilariously. A sparkling delight to read!" ―Gerardo Sámano Córdova, author of Monstrilio

This information about Out of Body was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Chris Vanjonack

Chris Vanjonack is a writer and educator from Denver, Colorado. A recipient of an AWP Intro Journals Award, his fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in One Story, The Book of the Month Club's Volume 0, Barrelhouse, Electric Literature, Ninth Letter, DIAGRAM, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and he teaches creative writing at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop. He can be found online at chrisvanjonack.com. 

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