Goldbloom is best known for her well-received début novel, The Paperbark Shoe (2010), which was released in the United States under the title Toads’ Museum of Freaks and Wonders. A diverse range of influences is evident in this new collection, with Goldbloom seguing capably between Australian bush gothic, Chassidic Jewish angst, and quirky Americana. Themes of sexual identity and gender confusion recur but do not overwhelm the narratives, which are often complex and moving.

‘The Road to Katherine’ is the frightening tale of an abandoned child’s encounter with a rogue truck driver, an unsettling opening story whose tone does not return until late in the collection with ‘Never Eat Crow’. Elsewhere, there is a lightness of touch, and moments of great beauty. ‘I Have Tasted Muskrat’ is an early highlight – Annie Proulx channelling Richard Brautigan, a style Goldbloom echoes in the final five stories, particularly the masterful ‘The Telephone of the Dead’, in which a woman’s needy, deceased husband calls her repeatedly from a British-style phone box in the afterlife.

Goldbloom’s voice, idiosyncratic and consistently fascinating, plumbs a rich vein of originality that is refreshing and, above all, fun to read. You Lose These + Other Stories is an imaginative, humorous, sometimes experimental mosaic fashioned by a largely unheralded Australian talent, and is a strong contender for the most interesting and innovative short story collection of the year.