Reviewed by John David Harding

I was surprised to find evidence of the global pandemic in the opening story of Teresa Milbrodt's Instances of Head-Switching. Turns out, it was a knee-jerk reaction to a story written long before the pandemic, but the parallels are uncanny. In "The Monsters' War," four friends attempt to rebuild their lives after a faction of monsters creates worldwide chaos. These shapeshifting monsters destroy cities, wrench apart families, and function as political flashpoints in clashes between the public and their government. Attracted by "the energy of unrest," they first destroy municipal buildings before reducing cities to rubble. They wreak havoc on food and medical supply chains, leading to starvation and preventable deaths. Schools close. Essential services cease. During this period of tumult, a new government is formed, and for the time being, the monsters are driven away. Although daily life begins to resemble its previous form, the threat of the monsters' resurgence keeps everyone on edge. Sound familiar?

Even so, interpreting works published in 2020 as pandemic allegories might be doing a disservice to them, their authors, and the evolving story of the pandemic itself. While it is irresponsible to move too far away from the realities of COVID-19, it is possible to read literary fiction without projecting therein traces of the pandemic. Maybe literature, then, is the one realm in which we can for now focus on something other than the virus.

In this light, Instances of Head-Switching offers a useful escape from the world as we know it. In these pages, real world elements intersect with forms of existence only thought possible in fairytale and myth. Drawing from a range of themes from mythmaking to disability, Milbrodt's stories foreground human bodies and human ability as impermanent, something that changes regularly over time. Contrary to what some people choose to believe, disability at some point touches everyone through aging, illness, or unforeseen circumstances. Many characters in Head-Switching experience forms of what we call disability, sometimes attributable to supernatural or mythical sources. But these characteristics are never the sum of who these characters are or what they can achieve. For instance, the characters of "The Monsters' War" exhibit varying degrees of ability: the narrator uses strong prescription glasses; Marcus uses hearing aids; Quinn's left foot was amputated; and Jones wears orthopedic shoes to balance out a shorter left leg. But their disabilities do not prevent them from surviving the monsters' invasion. Indeed, these and other characters align with an idea neatly stated by another story's narrator: "Being in a body is equal parts pleasure and negotiation."

In "The Pieces"—a reworking of the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme—the narrator describes the day on which her father has a nervous breakdown and goes to pieces "like a decapitated doll torn apart by an angry kid." His arms, legs, torso, and head are lined up neatly against the living room wall. When asked how he is, the man replies, "Been better, been worse." Unsure of what to do, the narrator takes her father's pieces out for coffee, but his criticism of her life choices drives her to think, "I could leave him at the coffee shop" in his helpless state. Moments later, she changes her mind: "But that would not be nice. Because he is my dad. Because I have so many imperfections that it would take hours to list them. Because I love my dad even when he drives me crazy, which happens a lot, but that's why they call it love." This is one of many beautifully rendered truths found nestled among the absurdities in these stories.

A more lighthearted tale, "White as Soap" follows the proprietor of a unicorn ranch in Wyoming. The rancher's life changes the day she is approached by a director wanting to feature her "unis" in a soap commercial. When the commercial's director comes to the ranch, she brings along unfounded assumptions about unicorns. "They're mythic and romantic," she says. "The sort of thing that will sell soap." But the rancher—hardened by the realities of breeding and raising these creatures—holds a more realistic perspective: "After you've been around unicorns for a while and watched them take a dump," she says, "neither mysticism nor purity comes readily to mind." Many of these stories embrace the tension between reality and fantasy. But even in the mundane, there is still beauty to be found, something that occurs to the rancher when she pauses to observe the unicorns running freely through the pasture.

Happy endings are hard to come by here, but in a way, that's a comfort. Despite their unusual circumstances and less than perfect relationships, Milbrodt's characters weather conflict by accepting life for what it is rather than what they think it should be. They don't run screaming from their homes when, for example, an "arthritis witch" invades their body, bringing them constant pain, or when an ancient deity shows up on their doorstep asking for help with a viral marketing campaign. They don't drag their father out to the curb on trash day when he transforms into a giant blue love seat. They stay. They face reality, regardless of how absurd that reality seems. Right now, theirs is an example worth striving for.