From one of the country’s most celebrated new writers, a blistering collection of short fiction that is bracingly relevant, playfully irreverent, and absolutely unforgettable.

There’s a hole in the ozone layer. Are teenage girls to blame?

Floods and wildfires, toxic culture, billionaires in outer space, or a purse-related disaster while on mushrooms—in today’s hellscape world, there’s no shortage of things to worry about. Last Woman, the new collection of short fiction by award-winning author Carleigh Baker, wants you to know that you’re not alone. In these 13 brilliant new stories, Baker and her perfectly-drawn characters are here for you—in fact, they’re just as worried and weirded-out as everyone else.
A woman’s dream of poetic solitude turns out to be a recipe for loneliness. A retiree is convinced that his silence is the only thing that will prevent a deadly sinkhole. An emerging academic wakes up and chooses institutional violence. A young woman finds sisterhood in a strange fertility ritual, and an enigmatic empath is on a cleanse. Baker’s characters are both wildly misguided and a product of the misguided times in which we live. Through them we see our world askew and skewered—and, perhaps, we can begin to see it anew.

Carleigh Baker’s signature style is irreverent, but her heart is true—these stories delve into fear for the future, intergenerational misunderstandings, and the complexities of belonging with sharp wit and boundless empathy. With equal parts compassion and critique, she brings her clear-eyed attention to bear on our world, and the results are hilarious, heartbreaking, and startling in their freshness.

Carleigh Baker is a Metis/Icelandic writer. Her work has appeared in subTerrain, PRISM International, Joyland, and This Magazine. She won subTerrain’s Lush Triumphant Award for short fiction in 2012, and was nominated for the Journey Prize in 2014. Her book reviews and critical writing have appeared in The Globe & Mail, The Malahat Review, The Goose, and EVENT magazine. She lives in Vancouver.

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“Carleigh Baker’s Last Woman is a knockout. These fifteen stories are probing contemplations on technology, the climate crisis, childhood, adulthood, parenthood, dreams, identity, creativity, and those staggering moments when the uncanny burbles up through the cracks of everyday experience. I gulped these pages in one sitting, but their insights will linger for years to come.”
—Michael Christie, author of Greenwood

“Carleigh Baker’s Last Woman is a satirical, energetic look at our messed-up world. The stories in this collection ask original, surprising what-if questions, exploring disasters small and large, personal and public, and the past, present, and future of this planet—and beyond. I’m so impressed with Baker’s ability to craft such a range of voices, by turns funny and vulnerable and exuberant and idiosyncratic. These stories are inventive, a little weird, and very, very cool.”
—Shashi Bhat, author of The Most Precious Substance on Earth