Reviewed by Kathy Bednarek
The Grief Shop and Other Stories from a Broken World
by Alex DiFrancesco
Seven Stories Press
June 2026, ISBN: 9781644215531, Paperback, 144 pages
In The Grief Shop and Other Stories from a Broken World, author Alex DiFrancesco continues their dedication to crafting stories that leverage the brokenness (and resilience) of characters while redefining the speculative fiction genre.
The book focuses on what could be considered the walking wounded, if it weren’t for their respective nuances and depth, along with surprising turns of humor. The stories are marked by the shadow of a singular, mostly unspoken, ‘tragedy’; however, the collection notably avoids the trap of victimization despite the cataclysmic proportions of its world.
It is a striking position to be in as a reader: rooting for characters who sometimes lack a clear emotional investment in their own lives. Through an atmosphere of emotional disaffection, the stories evoke a genuine empathy, transforming beyond the coolness of the prose into a compassionate study of the human condition. On the way, we encounter the farcical appearance of Neo-Dadaists, a search for a vanished singer-songwriter living on the Oregon coast, and a character who got into palmistry as a joke only to find deeper meaning.
We are also met with a mangled and interwoven grief that creates a haunting inverse to the human desire for connection. In “The Shorthand of Emotion,” a character asks out of courtesy for the husband in a failing marriage: “What if one of them doesn’t want to feel?” This poignant irony forces the reader to empathize with the very wish to remain numb. It is all too relatable. How often do situations—both personal and societal—devolve not into the “dystopian” as we usually imagine it, but into a search for meaning or a vital need to protect oneself through a dissociation?
I thought so many of us would lie down and die after the tragedy, but it turned out that we didn’t. We just kept putting one foot in front of another, food into our mouths, we kept talking to each other, planning for who knew what. (from “The Funeral Boom and the Amusement Park”)
The Grief Shop tracks precisely because we are dealing not with a collection of stories going through pure mimesis in a world fraught with tragedy. DiFrancesco writes into being lovable characters who are genuinely striving to feel or protect something akin to altruism or innocence.
In “Sweet Science,” which takes place in a boxing facility where feelings are essentially being reverse engineered by hitting specific mapped emotional points on the body, and love is cleverly weaponized, the scrappy protagonist Gemma fights back with their own form of righteous justice by using those manufactured responses to manipulate in return.
One could call the stories clever for their inventive plots. What stands out about The Grief Shop is it sustains its core humanity and heart against all the odds it stacks against itself, while sending readers on a mind-bending and rewarding journey.
About the reviewer: Kathleen Bednarek is a writer living in Pennsylvania. She is a current MFA student and has a MA in Poetry from Wilkes University.