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Let All Our Ghosts Depart
- Author
- Meghana Mysore
- Narrator
- various
- Publisher
- Blackstone Publishing
- Publish Date
- 1 September 2026
- Run Time
- 6 hours 58 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
- Genre
- Short stories
What to expect
In Meghana Mysore’s debut short story collection, present-day women and girls of the South Asian diaspora grapple with belonging and are haunted by intergenerational inheritances. Mysore, herself the daughter of Indian immigrants, spins her stories around narrators struggling to assimilate into the surreal world around them. In the world of these stories, ghosts are real—in “Repair Shop,” dead mothers reappear as chiding, broken-down cars; in “Hoarder,” the narrator’s ex-lovers transform into scarves that won’t let her go. In another story, a daughter, trapped inside her grief, spends her days Face Timing with her dead father, watching him become a young man she never knew.
At turns absurd and darkly humorous, and sometimes speculative, Mysore’s stories touch on real-life experiences of intergenerational trauma, womanhood, the fluidity of desire and longing, and coming home to one’s body. Her characters have faced violences small and large, holding losses that bind them to their pasts and weigh them down in daily life. Each of these stories contains an experience of transformation, be it small or monumental for these women, who find spaces of freedom and delight within their circumstances.
Critics Review
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“In these visionary stories ex-lovers metamorphose into strangling scarves and three generations of women joyfully transform into rainbow-hued squirrels; the dead refuse their deaths even as the living have to fight to be alive. Every page offers something gorgeous, savage, and unexpected. Mysore is an extraordinary talent, and her work is unforgettable.”
Susan Choi, National Book Award Winner and Booker Prize Finalist
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“There’s a strangeness born of real life that only fiction can reach; these haunting, wholly original stories illuminate the ways in which we both connect with and miss the most important people in our lives.”
Sejal Shah, Story Prize-Longlisted author of This Is One Way to Dance
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“Let All Our Ghosts Depart is a work of wonder. Kaleidoscopic and introspective, this book is a testament to the expansive and transformative power of storytelling. Examining grief and loss, loneliness and intimacy, the longings and desires of women, and the tarnished brightness of being alive, these stories are as multifaceted as memory itself.”
K-Ming Chang, Lambda Literary Award Winner
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“Let All Our Ghosts Depart is an extraordinary collection—in its inventiveness and originality, and in its creation of distinct and unique characters. Meghana Mysore’s glorious debut explores experiences of the Indian-American diaspora with beauty and precision and humor; she writes about grief and longing like no one else. A magnificent collection.”
Karen E. Bender, National Book Award Finalist
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“Let All Our Ghost Depart is a beautiful and imaginative collection, filled with characters who are longing to make sense of themselves, their relationships, and the losses that haunt them. With humor and insight, these stories ask us to reflect on what we owe each other and ourselves. A thrilling debut.”
Marian Crotty, PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize-Longlisted author
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Details
- Author
- Meghana Mysore
- Narrator
- various
- Duration
- 6 hours 58 minutes
- Release Date
- 1 September 2026
- ISBN
- 9798228923799
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Blackstone Publishing
- Genre
- Short stories
Synopsis
In Meghana Mysore’s debut short story collection, present-day women and girls of the South Asian diaspora grapple with belonging and are haunted by intergenerational inheritances. Mysore, herself the daughter of Indian immigrants, spins her stories around narrators struggling to assimilate into the surreal world around them. In the world of these stories, ghosts are real—in “Repair Shop,” dead mothers reappear as chiding, broken-down cars; in “Hoarder,” the narrator’s ex-lovers transform into scarves that won’t let her go. In another story, a daughter, trapped inside her grief, spends her days Face Timing with her dead father, watching him become a young man she never knew.At turns absurd and darkly humorous, and sometimes speculative, Mysore’s stories touch on real-life experiences of intergenerational trauma, womanhood, the fluidity of desire and longing, and coming home to one’s body. Her characters have faced violences small and large, holding losses that bind them to their pasts and weigh them down in daily life. Each of these stories contains an experience of transformation, be it small or monumental for these women, who find spaces of freedom and delight within their circumstances.
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