Thanks for This Riot - (The Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction) by Janelle Bassett (Paperback)

About the Book

Winner of the Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction, Thanks for This Riot explores the limits of kindness, the weight of being needed, and the fear of being misunderstood.

Book Synopsis

Winner of the Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction
Longlisted for the 2025 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection

Thanks for This Riot explores the limits of kindness, the weight of being needed, and the fear of being misunderstood. A group counselor is taunted by a truth-divining piano bench, a voice actor shouts her abortion at the state capitol, a tired caregiver tangles with a pair of stand-up comics, a small-town newspaper office shelters an otherworldly tattletale, a backwoods acupuncturist leans on her least-exciting offspring, a girl in a strapless bra takes a vengeful go-kart ride, and a woman gets surgery to lower her expectations (she thinks it went "okay"). Grouped by types of riot--external riots, internal riots, and laugh riots--Thanks for This Riot is a poignant and mordantly funny collection with a distinctly feminist viewpoint.

Review Quotes

"Thanks for This Riot shows us what happens when we reach for understanding instead of judgment. This is a collection I will be thinking about for a long time."--Julia Romero, October Hill Magazine

"Bassett never writes a judgmental line--if you are looking for irony or eye rolls, they are not here. Her stories play in shadows without being dark or blindly optimistic. Accept that people and their flaws make a flawed world. There's nothing to be gained by standing in the spotlight; make whimsey in the shade--it's way more fun."--Jeannine Burgdorf, Masters Review

"Thanks for This Riot is a captivating book from beginning to end. It is clear that Bassett is a talented writer, for each story contains unique characters and emotionally resonant themes. I highly recommend you check out this book, especially if you enjoy the art of short fiction."--Dominique Weldon, Erato Magazine-- (8/3/2024 12:00:00 AM)

"Janelle Bassett is a phenomenal writer. These stories are smart, irreverent, hilarious, and so wonderfully intimate. It is rare to find a writer who can balance humor with such earnest human emotion, and Bassett does it on every page. This collection is gold."--Alison Espach, author of Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance and The Wedding People

"An acerbic examination of family and femininity."--Kirkus Reviews

"Janelle Bassett's voice is one I can't get enough of. The stories in Thanks for This Riot are fresh and unique and wickedly off-kilter but also burn with a wry, age-old, ironic wisdom. This collection is bitingly funny but sincerely so, with little lies and harmless untruths taking on an edge and inflicting irresistible damage."--Timothy Schaffert, author of The Perfume Thief and The Titanic Survivors Book Club

"Janelle Bassett's writing is hilarious, intense, and alive. Every story in this collection is off-kilter in the best possible way. The characters are all trying to make sense of themselves in a world that doesn't fit quite right. Reading this felt like being tickled forcefully, laughing even as it got uncomfortable."--Katya Apekina, author of Mother Doll and The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish

About the Author

Janelle Bassett's writing appears or is forthcoming in the Rumpus, Indiana Review, Smokelong Quarterly, American Literary Review, the Offing, Washington Square Review, Wigleaf, and Best Microfiction 2023. She lives in Saint Louis and is a fiction editor at Split Lip Magazine.