Incendiary Girls explores our baser instincts with vivid imagination and dark humor. In these stories, the body becomes strange and unfamiliar terrain, a medium for transformation. In “Fundamental Laws of Nature,” a doctor considers legacy, both good and bad, when she discovers her mother has been reincarnated as a Thoroughbred mare. The infer­tile couple of “Primal Son” desperately wants a child, but when their wish is granted, the baby isn’t recognizably human. In “When a Camel Breaks Your Heart,” a figure artist struggles to understand her lover’s culture as he morphs, quite literally, into an exotic ani­mal. And the title story, narrated by an unorthodox angel, chronicles the remarkable life of a girl just beyond death’s reach.

In Kodi Scheer’s hands, empathy and attachment are illuminated by the absurdity of life. When our bodies betray us, when we begin to feel our minds slip, how much can we embrace without going insane? How much can we detach ourselves before losing our humanity? Scheer’s stories grapple with these questions in each throbbing, choking, heartbreaking moment.