I really appreciated the eyes into this region of the country. I think after Katrina the country has forgotten the flavor and authenticity of this area and the poverty that has encroached. I felt a tremendous amount of heart and soul in the writing mixed with a bit of desperation in many of the stories, however some just did not feel native or work in this collection for me. If you are going to write about an area, stick to issues that are centralized in that area and could not be written about anywhere else. The last story I will remember for a long time and really resonated with me. Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley.

Thank you to the publisher for my copy of this - all opinions are my own.

I very much enjoyed this collection of stories, that absolutely transported me to Louisiana in all its good and bad. Stephanie is phenomenal at writing the messy and complex human experience, and I found myself completely moved by these stories.

The writing is beautiful and it transports the reader into the space of the story fully.

Cannot recommend enough.

Stephanie Soileau’s debut short story collection, Last One Out Shut Off the Lights, brings a vivid voice and unforgettable imagery to Louisiana. Primarily set in the southwest corner of the state, these stories introduce us to the Cajun culture, its people, and their homeland. Some stories straightforward, others experimental, all poignant and beautiful, the tales of Last One Out Shut Off the Lights are memorable and distinct, and are sure to be enjoyed by lovers of stories of the American South.

So This is Permeance (3/5)
A teenage girl rejects the baby she has recently given birth to, and instead tries to reclaim her youth by engaging in risky, rebellious behavior.

So This is Permeance was in many ways horrifying due to the abuses inflicted upon this teenage mother’s infant son, but also shows the very real potential consequences of forcing and/or encouraging women to follow through with unwanted pregnancies. We can’t assume that every woman will automatically take to her child once it is born, and So This is Permeance shows what happens when the mother-child bond just isn’t there.

An Attachment Theory (4/5)
A young mother takes the steps to move out of her childhood home, but finds that the bonds her seven year old daughter has formed with her family members aren’t that easy to break.

This story was quite interesting to me. Many generations of families in Louisiana live in homes together, or you find grandparents, aunts, or godparents raising a loved one’s children. What happens when a child bonds better with one of their relatives than their own parents?

The Ranger Queen of Sulphur (4/5)
A young woman, disillusioned by her hometown’s prospects and stuck in a rut that she can’t find a way out of, attempts to help her morbidly obese brother get lap band surgery in Mexico.

The Ranger Queen of Sulphur spoke to me because it is a reminder of the ways that people can so easily become complacent and accept mediocrity and just “getting by” as the status quo. This story represents so many people living in poverty and without prospects, and shows that it really takes wanting something better for yourself to make it happen.

Poke Salad (3/5)
A man calls his daughter to tell her about what could have been his last meal.

Poke Salad is a very short story featuring a phone call by a man named Nason (connection to character in An Attachment Theory?) to his daughter. Poke Salad reads much like an anecdote and serves as a peek into the ways people relate to each other and the things they find to talk about.

The Whiskey Business (2/5)
A high school girl navigates a myriad of issues at her academic boarding school, including power, privilege, and sexual assault.

The Whiskey Business had too much going on to be effective as a short story. This tale shines light on the power and privilege that money can buy, shielding rapists and disreputable characters from consequence, yet it felt too all over the place to be of much effect.

When Pluto Lost His Planetary Status (3/5)
A metaphor-laden story compares Pluto and the recent discovery of his many “brothers and sisters” out there at the far end of the galaxy to a “bastard” child who learns his dad has fathered other sons and daughters.

I’ll admit that I didn’t quite “get” what Soileau was going for here, but I enjoyed reading it for its poetic language and thought-provoking imagery.

Mr. A (4/5)
The questionable director of a child theatre troupe seemingly has eyes for one of his prodigies, a teenage black boy, who has also caught the eye of a church-grown girl in the troupe.

Mr. A was interesting and at times, had me questioning my perception of reality. Are things as they appear in this story or are we seeing something that is not there?

Cut Off, Louisiana: A Ghost Story (3/5)
One of Soileau’s more experimental stories, Cut Off, Louisiana takes us to the old days of Bayou Lafourche, once a distributary of the Mississippi River.

Having roots in Lafourche Parish, I appreciated this story, although I did have difficulty following some parts even though I am familiar with the area, people, and French language; so I can imagine that those not from or familiar with Acadiana will have some difficulty with this story.

Haguillory (4/5)
An ornery man and his wife spend the day crabbing.

I really liked Haguillory because not only did it contain so many touches of life in Louisiana, but it also gave a realistic portrayal of how relationships can breakdown over time.

Camera Obscura (3/5)
A Louisiana transplant out west deals with her husband’s terminal illness by indulging in fantasies about a coworker.

A solid story about leaving the place where you grew up, but not being able to escape.

The Boucherie (3/5)
When an interstate accident sends cattle headed to the slaughterhouse out all over town, one cow ends up in the yard of a newly immigrated Sudanese family, whose neighbors try to convince them to let the neighborhood residents butcher her.

The Boucherie focuses on immigration and how cloistered communities react to “outsiders.” This story shines a spotlight on a merging of cultures and customs in small town Louisiana.

Hard hitting and slightly skewered, these stories are based on people that lived through Hurricane Katrina; the aftermath, the consequences telling, the people transformed, haunted. An unwanted pregnancy, a lost pet, the destruction of property and belongings, although fiction, these stories were written with a touch of reality. Everyone has a story. The destruction is very real, in the physical world and in the heart's of those that survived. Sometimes, its the upheaval of life that hurts the most.

These short stories by Stephanie Soileau are wonderful, yet heartbreaking. Well written and filled with atmosphere, I would recommend Last One Out Shut Off the Lights to those wanting a glimpse (emphasize glimpse) into the aftermath of a catastrophe. Beautifully done.

Thanks to NetGalley, Little, Brown, and Company, and Stephanie Soileau for an ARC in return for an honest review.

This book is a collection of short stories by Stephanie Soileau describing the struggles in Louisiana. I couldn't fully engage in this book, since I'm not a huge fan of short stories, but I did find it interesting.

Thank you Netgalley Little, Brown and Company for this ARC.

Very interesting collection of Louisiana stories with a strong sense of place.

My favorite stories were "So This Is Permanence," "An Attachment Theory," "The Ranger Queen of Sulphur," "The Whiskey Business," "Mr. A.," and "Camera Obscura."

I’m judging a 2020 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.

I know this sentence only comes at the bottom of the first paragraph but really it was this sentence that let me know that I was in very capable hands and gave myself over completely to the novel. "Ever since the later months of her pregnancy, after she had packed up the contents of her locker, turned in her textbooks, and left high school, apparently for good, Sarah had taken to her room, giving herself over completely to sleepless hours alone with the growing boulder of a belly and the strangely comforting idea that if only she were a spider, she might cast this thing off on a windowsill in a bundle of silk and let it hatch on its own." -3

I was given this ARC by netgalley and publisher for honest review and opinion
I am not one for short stories but I figured I would give this one a try
It is a collection of stories of those living in Louisiana

Set in the smaller towns of South Louisiana, this dark and unforgiving collection exposes a side of Louisiana life that is not seen on the tourism commercials that blare zydeco music and encourage you to come on down, eat, drink and Laissez Bon Temps Roulez. Soileau delves in to the lives of people struggling to make ends meet in impoverished, rural communities and examines people who are steadfast in their ways against those who want to break out and have more than what their small town offers. The opening story is jarring and uncomfortable to read while Haguillory and The Whiskey Business made my blood boil. Why? Because what she writes is truth and to read it so brazenly written out on the page was unsettling. Soileau does not sugarcoat how harsh life can be and she pushed me in to a place of discomfort that I haven’t quite been able to shake. Many thanks to Little Brown for providing me with an ecopy of this debut.

𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙚𝙡𝙩 𝙖𝙩 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙞𝙧𝙚, 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙪𝙙𝙙𝙚𝙣 𝙫𝙖𝙘𝙪𝙪𝙢 𝙤𝙛 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙤𝙬𝙣 𝙚𝙢𝙥𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨, 𝙥𝙪𝙣𝙘𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚𝙙 𝙣𝙤𝙬, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙡𝙙 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙙 𝙥𝙪𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙙 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙝𝙞𝙢𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙛 𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙜𝙤 𝙧𝙪𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙖𝙩 𝙝𝙞𝙢, 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙞𝙢, 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙙 𝙝𝙞𝙢.

These short stories by Stephanie Soileau are made of little hurts and struggles in Louisiana. Illegitimate children sharing the same orbit as siblings (strangers to them), theater kids looking to be Mr. A’s favorite, rivers moving into the towns, ghosts, bullfrog meals, marshes, devastating hurricanes and all the people caught in between.

It begins with the shocking permanence of choices, with the story of teenager Sarah as she is left alone for the first time since giving birth to her baby boy. The child, like a toy she is bored with or some mysterious, needy creature; one she prefers others to deal with. Wrestling with her emotions, angered her mother and sister are forcing her to care for her son, all she wants is to cast it all off. Where has her life gone? He will be okay in the closet, while she slips out, trying to forget this bawling responsibility.

In 𝘈𝘵𝘵𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘰𝘳𝘺, Kay and her little girl are at odds, and all she wants is to make a home for them, one where her own parents and siblings don’t have any say. Family can be a comfort or suffocate like cling film. The real distance between them is the ever present question, ‘who is my daddy?’ Life is mean and sometimes mother’s can be too, especially when exhausted by their child’s petulance.

In 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘘𝘶𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘚𝘶𝘭𝘱𝘩𝘶𝘳 a woman just wants to cure her brother, convincing him salvation for his particular malady is in Mexico. But will he surrender to her fading optimism? Can she continue to be the presentable sibling?

A girl is violated and her friends refuse to stay silent, but what changes? Characters fighting help and learning to accept it, mean spiteful men, desire that disorients, a glimpse at what forgetting looks like and love that is devastating failures.

This is a world full of people who can’t transcend the roles they are trapped in. If there is a brighter horizon, they aren’t rich enough to afford the view. I had my favorites, like 𝘊𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘢 𝘖𝘣𝘴𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘢, the loneliness, the desire for abandonment from cancerous reality and the ceaseless struggle of marriage. A woman, stuck in a state of suspension, waiting for what? Change? Happiness? Oblivion? Some stories are solid, others odd- it is a raw collection that felt like salt in wounds. Out tomorrow!

Publication Date: July 7, 2020

Little, Brown and Company

This was a really well written short story collection. It had a lot of variety and personality sprinkled throughout. I really enjoyed the first 3 stories the best. The characters jumped off the page and you could really feel their discomfort and unhappiness. There were about 3 to 4 stories that were good, but they weren't as exciting or as memorable as the others. There's 11 stories total and I can happily say that out of 11, 8 stories were top-notch. Stephanie Soileau has a beautiful and razor-sharp prose. I can't say it's the best short collection I've ever read, but it's solid and meaningful.

Thank you, Netgalley and Little Brown for the digital ARC.

Release date: July 7, 2020

First two short stories in the collection were great. After that they became nonsensical and hard to follow. I would not purchase this book but would get it from the library just to read the first two stories.

last one out shut off the lights was an interesting collection of stories. like most story collections, some resonated, and others fell flat. i find that soileau's strength lies in writing about ordinary people doing ordinary things- in stories like 'so this is permanence', 'the ranger queen of sulphur', and 'the boucherie', for instance, the characters are so alive they come off the page, and drag you into the humidity and stickiness of swampy southwest louisiana. but the more ethereal stories, like 'poke salad' and 'when pluto lost his planetary status' were jarring and broke up the rhythm of the collection.
i loved the unity of the collection, and the place it so vividly and lovingly portrays. it was very cohesive and gave me a new awareness of the life that exists in these small towns that somehow keep on kicking.

This was not my cup of tea. I had difficulty relating to these characters and the stories. I prefer more of a slow, simmering read rather than stories that appear to scream at you, particularly, "An Attachment Theory." For example, "I can't open my eyes and "Why does it smell like that"? Could the Author have used more descriptive language rather than 'throwing it in your face'. The stories are blunt and one sided. i did not find them interssting.

Not my usual read but the writing was so descriptive and informative that before I knew it I was almost finished with the book. If it's not your genre give it a try anyway I'll bet you will enjoy it as I did.