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I’m doing the same kind of exploring as when we went away together, galleries and museums, looking out for statues and monuments, public art and graffiti. Monaco’s far weirder than I expected, though. I never imagined I’d come here, and I can’t believe I’m saying it, but I think I like it — or at least I don’t hate it. There are stupid boards everywhere saying shit like ‘Monaco — Land of Ahead Thinkers’ and obviously the yacht club can fuck off, but some of it is kind of funny: I saw this ludicrous poster with Mickey and Minnie Mouse, the Monopoly Man, Bugs Bunny and Jessica Rabbit playing poker by the casino, I couldn’t tell if it was shit art or just an annoying advert. Of course, the most straightforward adverts for Gucci or superyacht insurance or banks give a better measure of who lives and works here, but I haven’t met anyone besides Jean-Philippe, and I’ve only said a few words to him, so I’ve just been walking around with the camera.

Read an exclusive extract from Monaco, the new autofictional novella by Juliet Jacques.

By virtue of reading this message you have become a participant in a clinical trial that is intended to evaluate the efficacy of a newly-developed therapeutic treatment for exposure to a lethal airborne environmental toxin. A complete prospectus outlining the guidelines for this study is on file in the office of the Food and Drug Administration. Be advised that the FDA as well as any persons involved in the clinical trial will not bear any liability for illness, injury, or death incurred by any participant in the study.

A short story by David Sheskin.

Dimple-chinned Malcolm Tanner is such a precious precious boy that his parents put him on TV so he can make them loads of money. He’s got five good years playing the young son on a hit sitcom but when TMZ leaks footage of his TV daddy beating a real-life mommy in a Silverlake bar, the show doesn’t get renewed for a sixth season. Little Malcolm and the whole crew are now out of work but unlike the bearded grips and buxom starlets, the boy is stranded in the wrong stage of puberty. Pizzaface acne and a cracking voice and sudden growth spurts don’t make little Malcolm so cute anymore. He learns that unemployed in this condition translates to unemployable, or so he hears the casting directors say.

A short story by Vita Tate.

They put—put—me in the countryside. There’s no other way to describe it. It happened suddenly. They grabbed me from my hospital bed one morning right after I had just slipped my hand under the sheets to begin my morning ritual. They must have known my habits, because they came in just as I was getting going, grabbing me first by that arm, then the other, then my legs, lifting me, carrying me downstairs and throwing me into the back of the van.

A short story by Alex Aspden.

Even if she had had legs, Dolores wouldn’t have known how to use them to get away. There was a poison in her and the theft of her legs had not been enough for it: those melted stumps were simply the sign of that greater corrosion, much as the trappings of a church are only there to point to the presence of the god, and it was this hidden thing, not their uncle, that was leading her into the forest. It was the blunt promise of her anatomy: the slack mouth and the round pig eyes; the antiquated languor of her fat white hands—these small acquiescences all pointed to the answer of a question never asked: a great pale feminine yes.

Read an extract from Missouri Williams’ The Doloriad.

When you leaned in for the briefest hug—one arm, no chest—I fell sick with desire, pangs of longing. You in the backyard, you against the truck, you with the frayed sleeves, you with the canvas jacket, scruffy you, rough around the edges you, funny sharp quick you, you with the shoulders, you with the hands, you on the phone, you smoking a cigarette, you with an arm on the steering wheel, you spilling a few drops of soda on the ground, you with the Carhartts and Camels and raspy voice and me losing my mind.

A short story by Elizabeth Bevilacqua.