“Gayle Brandeis brilliantly turns her characters inside out to reveal and honor their humanity in this outstanding and extraordinary collection.” —Sefi Atta, author of Indigene: A Novella and Short Stories

“Gayle’s writing knocked me out from the very first extraordinary tale in this collection. I had to put the book down, walk around for a while, marveling at what she’d done, and then return to it. These stories are delightful and frightening, beautiful and bizarre. I can’t yet pick a favorite although I have tried. Don’t miss your chance to dive in. It’s absolutely fantastic.” —Sara Benincasa, author of ABRAHAM F**KING LINCOLN

“Three States of Rice by Gayle Brandeis impresses with its sheer range and beauty. Alive and electric, and borne of a seemingly limitless imagination, these stories have it all. You like dark humor? Magical realism? Deep emotional resonance? Playful structural inventiveness? Check, check, check, and check. With tenderness and candor, Brandeis explores family dynamics, bodily autonomy and transformation, love and grief, memory and ancestral ties and more. "The Concrete Slides of Northern California" is uniquely framed and incredibly moving, a masterpiece of the short form. Another favorite, "Navel Gazer," is stunningly original and funny. But all of these stories are absolute gems. Gayle Brandeis is the real deal and this book is a wonder. Highly recommended.” —Kathy Fish, author of Wild Life: Collected Works from 2003-2018

“I love speculative literary fiction, and Gayle Brandeis’s Three States of Rice fits right there on the bookshelf next to Aimee Bender. Motherhood, womanhood, what it means to exist and connect and change how you see yourself—all within an ordinary, recognizable landscape. But nothing is ordinary about these characters and stories. Bodies break rules. The laws of physics do not apply. It’s a shocking delight, page after page! I finished this book in one night, laughing and gasping and absolutely unraveled by the magnifying glass Brandeis holds up to the human experience.” —Hannah Grieco, author of First Kicking, Then Not

“This fun-house mirror of a collection artfully merges the unexplained with the inexplicable—a death, a divorce, an existential yearning for a mother—in a tapestry of endearing characters and oddities that will make you embrace the dark humor of being alive. Bursting with love, these stories will remind your heart of the joy of wonder and the necessity of connection.” —Laraine Herring, author of A Constellation of Ghosts: A Speculative Memoir with Ravens

“Poet Gayle Brandeis has crafted a gorgeous collection of short stories with long shadows. At turns tender, brutal, and wryly funny, readers will lose themselves (and perhaps find themselves) in all of the anxieties, lusts, and delightfully wild appetites this book serves up.” —Beth Kander, author of I Made It Out of Clay

“Purple couches, umbilical cords, strings of lovers, flotsam, incessant phone calls from babies: The Three States of Rice surprised me at every turn. Wildly inventive, sensual, surreal and very human, these stories of grief, longing and connection moved me and delighted me. Brandeis is a writer of great imagination, attention, curiosity and heart.” —Ananda Lima, author of CRAFT: Stories I Wrote for the Devil

“Some of the strangest, funniest, most horrifying situations wait for you in these stories, as well as some of the sweetest, most intriguing, most disquietingly familiar characters: there is, for starters, a cavalcade of odd, funny mothers. And there are some heroic and supportive mothers. Plus some hurricanes. Plus: strange babysitters, supportive siblings, actual professional navel-gazers, all in service of fictional worlds fully attuned to our own world. We’re in generous territory here, with family and humor and darkness at its core. What Brandeis does here is a bit of a miracle: every story shines, every story reminds us of how odd it is to be alive, and how deeply interconnected we all are, and how family and strangers alike are worthy of our attention—in every state and at every stage.” —Juan Martinez, author of Extended Stay and Best Worst American

“Gayle Brandeis' Three States of Rice is a compulsively readable collection of deliciously weird short fiction. Her sensuous prose is infused with tenderness, tinged with longing, sexy and curious and deeply human. In "Generations", a young mother who hasn't had sex in eight years finds herself mysteriously, inexplicably pregnant. In "The Navel Gazer", a woman is gifted a Groupon for an omphalomancy session that summons her maternal ancestors. In "Mulberry", a woman's fiancé discloses that he is already married–to a maple tree. Live, raw, or cooked, these stories will continue to consume you long after you close the book.” —Cati Porter, author of Clay Bodies

“There's a sentence at the end of one of Gayle Brandeis's virtuoso short stories that describes the body as “lustrous wreckage to reassemble,” something to make new. By turns comic and devastating, Three States of Rice exquisitely embodies that idea. Brandeis has a singular ability to turn the ordinary inside out, letting the fantastical arrive without fanfare, so that the miraculous and the mundane are equally startling. We are given fresh takes on virgin birth, on the eroticism of bagels and bialys, on bottomless craving and desire, on the profundity of the sugar rush. The cumulative effect is a collection generous in its strangeness and exacting in its grief. This book confirms Brandeis as a master of the short form and returns the reader back to their own lives utterly awed and transformed. —Ravi Shankar, Pushcart-award author of "Correctional" and editor of Drunken Boat

“These stories hit pressure points you didn’t know you had, like literary acupuncture. The characters in Three States of Rice have ancestors coiled in their navels, marriages to trees, intimacy with the taboo -- Imagine the figures in Grimm’s fairy tales came alive, and you’ll have some idea of what you’ll come across in this book. And every line, a polished gem of shimmering prose. I often found myself holding my breath as I read, and I finished the book rapturously, reminded of why I love reading. Gayle Brandeis’s mind is like no other; we're so lucky to get to take a peek inside.” —Amy Shearn, author of Animal Instinct