I could feel Bonnie's hand reaching for mine. We would follow people home, go up in their elevators and into their apartments. We never felt guilty, as long as it was a chain. In more destructive moods, we would just flat-out damage property, fling apparel out of Urban Outfitters. We would float objects in the air, distorting others' fields of reality. We would eavesdrop on conversations, interjecting dialogue. MA: (Reading) We would touch strangers discreetly, feathering down their cowlicks. Two old friends, last night together before one moves away - they take it together and range around Manhattan's Upper West Side. SIMON: So if I could ask you to read a section from the story 'G,' the drug that makes people invisible. SIMON: I want to give people some idea of your distinct style. MA: And I found that during the pandemic, I at least had sort of the critical distance of time to look at them in a more detached manner. The problem was that they were - felt very emotional to me, but the emotions would kind of volcanically gush forth and then overtake the story and just scar it completely.

MA: Many of these stories started off as sketches that I had in my files just for years and years. And I wrote most of these stories while in hibernation during the first year of the pandemic. MA: I think there is a sort of emotional sensibility connecting all of these stories, but they are quite disparate. SIMON: Do you want readers to make connections between these stories or take them in separately? LING MA: Thank you, Scott, for having me. Not what you'd expect from a figure from Himalayan folklore, now is it? 'Bliss Montage' is a collection of short stories told with what's become her signature sting of wit and satire by Ling Ma, author of the highly acclaimed novel 'Severance.' And she joins us now. A Yeti not only comes to life but splashes on Old Spice and lights up American Spirit cigarettes. There's a recreational drug called 'G' that makes people invisible, which seems fun at first, but winds up concealing other problems. A woman lives in a Los Angeles house that's stocked with 100 of her former boyfriends. You turn the pages of 'Bliss Montage,' Ling Ma's new book of short stories, and find the world you thought you knew shaken up and rearranged.

Bliss montage paperback