The sixteen punchy tales of Caleb Caudell's debut short story collection, Novelty, sees Caudell continue in the pioneering midwestern realist style he carved out with The Neighbor (2021) as well as branch out into more conceptual and philosophical territory, with stories depicting the indignity of contemporary alienation, the valorisation of youth, the emptiness of film and television, and the eternal tragic-comic struggles of love and romance. By turns slapstick, sombre, and absurd, these stories will knock you down, give you conniptions and leave you stroking your chin in rumination.