Out of Body is a wildly inventive collection of interconnected speculative stories—spanning the multiverse, demonic attachment, and life after death—from an electrifying new voice in fiction.
LitStackers! Get ready to add another title to your “TBR” list! Out of Body by Chris Vanjonack is in presale and generating serious buzz. This collection of interconnected stories from William Morrow | HarperCollins set for publication Sept. 22, 2026, has early readers buzzing. We’re here to show you what’s on the book cover, from the publisher’s official description to the early reviews that suggest this book is one you want to pre-order today. Here we go!
As an affiliate of Bookshop.org, Malaprop’s, Books-A-Million, Audiobooks.com, Chirp, 2nd & Charles, Amazon, NameHero, Envato, and Place-It, LitStack may earn a commission—at no cost to you—when you purchase through our affiliate links. We appreciate the brands we work with, and also appreciate that using our affiliate links may help you find your next great read, a book or two or more, in whatever form, while simultaneously supporting LitStack. When you use our affiliate links, you help keep LitStack running—and for that, we thank you.
In This Spotlight On Out of Body
Support Independent Bookstores.
You can find Spotlights at LitStack on bookshop.org
About Out of Body
An aimless ghost haunts his ex-girlfriend for evidence that she’s actually upset about his death.
A group of teens discovers a machine that purports to predict the best day of its users’ lives.
A young woman is horrified to discover that an aggressive stranger she met on a night of bar-hopping now manifests in every photo that is taken of her.
A drunken posse descends into the woods in search of clowns that have been terrorizing their small town.
Chris Vanjonack’s fiction in Out of Body is haunted not only by specters of death, but by the elusive questions of life, and above all, the wonder and horror of the infinite. Uncanny, surreal, and infectiously clever, the stories in this linked collection contain horrors great and small, fueled as much by the fantastic as by longing, dread, and all-too-human frailties.
Morbidly funny and brilliantly observed, Out of Body is an atmospheric, dead original feast for the senses.
Praise for Out of Body
“Chris Vanjonack is a freight train of talent, and he’s at full-throttle in Out of Body. This is a mind-bending, world-splitting, wildly entertaining debut—a significant event on the landscape of contemporary fiction.”—Patrick Ryan, New York Times bestselling author of Buckeye
“Such wonderful freshness in these stories [in Out of Body], exploding and reinventing our world but always with an eye to human connection and our complexities at the core of the experiment. A true delight for readers.”—Aimee Bender, author of The Butterfly Lampshade and The Girl in the Flammable Skirt
“Eerie, unhinged, and hilarious, these stories [in Out of Body] are the work of a true original. Chris Vanjonack is the best new writer I’ve encountered in a long while.”—Dan Chaon, author of One of Us
“Steeped in wondrous weirdness and heart, Chris Vanjonack’s stories take you into the most vulnerable nooks of his characters’ humanity. These stories [in Out of Body] deliver wildly entertaining premises that unfold tenderly, poignantly and hilariously. A sparkling delight to read!”—Gerardo Sámano Córdova, author of Monstrilio
“Chris Vanjonack’s Out of Body is its own singularity. A dazzling collection where characters aren’t bound to a single story, let alone a single universe. Teeming with haunts and heartbreak, this book will leave you breathless.”—Gus Moreno, author of This Thing Between Us
“Chris Vanjonack’s stories [in Out of Body] are weird and shimmering little worlds, surreal spaces warmed by the unmistakable feeling of something I know very well passing between characters. I’ll read everything he writes.”—Elissa Washuta, author of White Magic
“Chris Vanjonack’s debut collection [Out of Body] is completely fresh—quirky and subtle, sometimes dark, always very, very funny. All the stories stick with you. If Joy Willliams and Kelly Link begat a literary heir, his stories would read like Chris Vanjonack’s.”—David Wright Faladé, author of Black Cloud Rising and The New Internationals
“A banger of a collection. Vanjonack expands where stories can take readers via this collection of weird, vibey stories that explore horrors both big and small. His stories will blow you away.”—Debutiful
About Chris Vanjonack, Author of Out of Body
Chris Vanjonack is a writer and educator from Denver, Colorado. A recipient of an AWP Intro Journals Award, his fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in One Story, The Book of the Month Club’s Volume 0, Barrelhouse, Electric Literature, Ninth Letter, DIAGRAM, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and he teaches creative writing at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop.
You can connect with Chris Vanjonack on his website, and on LinkedIn.
Source: Publisher
Publisher: William Morrow | HarperCollins
ISBN Hardcover 9780063471528
Pub Date: Sept 22, 2026
LitStack Spots
Here are a few more LitStack Spots that you’ll definitely want to add to your TBR stack, including A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez, The Beast You Are by Paul Tremblay, and White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link.
Other LitStack Resources
LitStack Spotlights
Be sure and check out LitStack Spotlights that shine a light on books we think you should read. We feature two books each week in our LitStack Spotlight, and offer suggestions for similar titles in our LitStack Spots.
LitStack Reviews
Also look at our LitStack Reviews, including reviews by Lewis Buzbee, Lauren Alwan, Allie Coker, Rylie Fong, and Sharon Browning.
LitStack Recs
Each week we offer a LitStack Rec, sometimes two books at once, sometimes more. Be sure and look at our LitStack Recs where you’ll find what you should read next.
You can find and buy the books we recommend at the LitStack Bookshop on our list of LitStack Recs.
As an affiliate of Bookshop.org, Malaprop’s, Books-A-Million, Audiobooks.com, Chirp, 2nd & Charles, Amazon, NameHero, Envato, and Place-It, LitStack may earn a commission—at no cost to you—when you purchase through our affiliate links. We appreciate the brands we work with, and also appreciate that using our affiliate links may help you find your next great read, a book or two or more, in whatever form, while simultaneously supporting LitStack. When you use our affiliate links, you help keep LitStack running—and for that, we thank you.
As a Bookshop, Malaprop’s, BAM, Barnes & Noble, Audiobooks.com, Amazon, and Envato affiliate, LitStack may earn a commission at no cost to you when you purchase products through our affiliate links.
