Things That Cannot Be Tamed by Khristian Mecom
Things That Cannot Be Tamed by Khristian Mecom
Introduction by Lidia Yuknavitch
Things That Cannot Be Tamed explores three generations of women as they survive, struggle, and thrive in a harsh and beautiful Alaskan landscape. These stories wonder and interrogate — does the place you’re from intrinsically define you? Or is that a choice you make? How much of our lives are shaped by those who have come before us? How do we impact what is beyond us?
In Things That Cannot Be Tamed, Mecom weaves three tales into a saga of womanhood, self-determination, and the magic of stretching into the unknown: Ida, an aging and sensible pilot who feels most sure in the sky; Ruth, a restless mother reluctant to believe in others, in herself; and Arna, a woman who trusts the land like it is her body. In these stories, love and survival circle each other sharply within a landscape of the fantastic and magical — Mecom welcomes us to her hearth and illuminates truths believed in the bones.
About the Book
Paperback chapbook, 122 pages
Release date: December 28th 2018
Cover Design: Peter Barnfather
“The world is always chaos, but what you make of that chaos and how you allow it to shape you is for you to decide.” — Interview with Khristian Mecom in Speaking of Marvels
Praise for Things That Cannot Be Tamed
"The generational journeys of three different women lodged inside the landscape of Alaska form the body of this book…In your hands, the stories of Arna, whose father tells her to become the beast she already knows lives inside her. Ida born in the harshest winter of all Alaskan winters. And Ruth, who wonders if she is real. Let their bodies and the body of their world story you home."
— Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Book of Joan
"Things That Cannot Be Tamed is made up of three stories about place, gender, family, and self-determination. Khristian Mecom writes with delicacy and with deeply nuanced understanding of human nature, human longings, utterly human patterns of behavior."
— Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble: Stories
"The fierce, beautifully written stories in Khristian Mecom’s The Things That Cannot Be Tamed traverse difficult terrains—geographical, familial, intrapsychic. Mecom nimbly explores several generations of irrepressible, at times hardheaded women who stake out lives against an Alaskan backdrop. In taking a multigenerational view, Mecom highlights the interplay of selfhood and nature, and how much love and survival is impacted by physical place. A powerful and intricately constructed read."
— Hala Alyan, author of Salt Houses
An Excerpt
About the Author
Khristian Mecom is the author of the novella Love & Black Holes (1888Center). Born in Oklahoma, she grew up and lives in Florida where she earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Florida Atlantic University. Her fiction has appeared in Slice Magazine, Fourteen Hills, Iron Horse Literary Review, Passages North, and elsewhere.
