Joyce Carol Oates calls LaBrie's writing
"Mordantly funny, eerily discomforting, & unexpectedly wise — an audacious gathering of stories mirroring our contemporary world."
“Exemplary storytelling that grapples with important themes. LaBrie’s collection of misanthropic short stories offers meditations on death, dying, grief, and organ donation.” —
Kirkus Reviews
In her award-winning collection of short stories,
Rage and Other Cages
, LaBrie offers lessons on grief, loneliness, and relationships that examine what it means to be female in today's America.
The characters range from a former child actress turned real estate agent who yearns for her past, to a nurse who must convince a murderer to donate his girlfriend's organs, to a bartender at Ray's Happy Birthday Bar who is kidnapped by a customer searching for a mysterious key. Bad dates, bad jobs, and bad situations force these characters to use their wits and wiles to survive. In a voice akin to Lorrie Moore meets Mary Gaitskill, LaBrie has her readers laughing on one page and raging on another. Her voice is memorable, raw, and undeniably skillful.