An assault survivor realizes she can rewind time and relives the experience in order to erase it. A teen athlete wonders why she isn’t more afraid of death when the plane carrying her team catches fire. The daughter of a superhero ruminates on how her father neglected his children to pursue his heroics. Two shut-in depressives form a bond on Twitter while a deadly virus wipes out most of the population of North America.
The stories in Erase and Rewind probe the complexities of living as a woman in a skewed society. Told from the perspective of various female protagonists, they pick at rape culture, sexism in the workplace, uneven romantic and platonic relationships, and the impact of trauma under late-stage capitalism. Quirky, intelligent, and darkly comic, Meghan Bell's debut collection is a highwire balance of levity and gravity, finding the extraordinary in common experiences.
"Erase and Rewind is a bold and nuanced collection of stories, where women lose and find themselves through depression, desire, and friendship, only to become more wholly themselves, on their own terms—a distinctive, feminist book." —Humber Literary Review
"Bell finds balance where it is difficult to do so, making the collection one that becomes difficult to put down, and effortless to complete in one day." —The British Columbia Review
"Rivetting, shake-you-by-the-shoulders short stories… I found this book difficult to put down, almost as if it were rude to leave the cinema before all the shorts ended. In a matter of hours, I discovered 13 works that could easily play on screen." —The Miramichi Review