Brilliant, imaginative, original, satirical stories from an exciting young American writer - for fans for George Saunders and Ted Chiang.

Shortlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection 2021

‘Wickedly, exquisitely hilarious’ – Alexandra Kleeman

‘Open-source desire, self-replicating fantasy’ – Tom McCarthy

‘A brilliant and brilliantly strange and strangely funny and menacing debut!’ – Sam Lipsyte

In this provocative, bitingly funny debut collection, people attempt to use technology to escape their uncontrollable feelings of grief, rage or despair, only to reveal their most flawed and human selves.

An architect draws questionable inspiration from her daughter’s birth defect. A content moderator for ‘the world’s biggest search engine’, who spends her days culling videos of beheadings and suicides, turns from stalking her rapist online to following him in real life. At a camp for recovering internet trolls, a sensitive misfit goes missing. A wounded mother raises the second incarnation of her child.

In You Will Never Be Forgotten, Mary South explores how technology can both collapse our relationships from within and provide opportunities for genuine connection. Formally inventive, darkly absurdist, savagely critical of the increasingly fraught cultural climates we inhabit, these ten stories also find hope in fleeting interactions and moments of tenderness. They reveal our grotesque selfishness and our intense need for love and acceptance, and the psychic pain that either shuts us off or allows us to discover the greatest depths of empathy. This incendiary debut marks the arrival of a perceptive, idiosyncratic, instantly recognizable voice in fiction – one that could only belong to Mary South.

"[An] edgily brilliant debut collection . . . Bringing together emotion and technology, South’s stories are comfortless but very sharp." - Sunday Times

"[A] brilliantly biting debut . . . In a world that is more ‘connected’ than ever, loneliness is still endemic, hearts break, and melancholy and rage win out over the cool disinterest of machines every time." - Daily Mail

"Weird and often wonderful . . . a joltingly strange critique of the contemporary moment." - Metro

"South’s odd and wondrous short stories take place in a near future in which people broken by grief and loneliness use and work with technology that is meant to cure, or at the very least lessen, their hurt . . . At her best, South is reminiscent of George Saunders, replete with strangeness and dark humor. This intriguing collection should put South on readers' radars and is perfect for fans of Black Mirror." - Booklist

"Written with dark humor and a striking lack of sentimentality, these stories are vehicles for characters who each use tech to try to retrieve that which is irrevocably lost." - The Atlantic

"Prescient and unsettling . . . You Will Never Be Forgotten’s stories are united by South’s keen examination of the thrill and risk of human connection . . . [South] shows us there is still tenderness to be found, and protected, in the brave new world to come." - The Nation

"Mary South couldn’t have predicted our current moment, but her stories could not feel timelier . . . The universes she conjures skate between science fiction-like dystopia and an all-too-familiar present reality . . . South is fixated in particular on women and the challenges they face in this always-online era — how they and their bodies can be manipulated, distorted, abused. Her depictions of pregnancy and childbirth bring to mind a Margaret Atwood-esque darkness." - New York Times

"South’s stories are both funny and profound, often on the same page, but perhaps her best skill is plumbing the intricacies of loneliness, expertly dissecting what that term means in a technology-driven world. This is an electric jolt from a very talented writer." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)