Review of An Oral History of Atlantis by Ed Park

*An Oral History of Atlantis: Stories* by Ed Park (2025). Published by Random House.

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I recently fell into a spell of unemployment probably during the worst time to be unemployed, as it was very hard to find a job. I was applying to hundreds of jobs, getting interviews, but no offer was manifesting for me in the near future. So during this time, I had a lot of free time, and spent a good chunk of it chipping away at the blog.

I’ve always and forever been a library girl from the bottom of my heart. When I was a child my mother would always take us to the library and I’d pick out a ridiculous amount of books, and I’ve continued that tradition when I moved home from New York City, after college, in order to keep picking my brain for new stories out there in the world.

During this time while unemployed, in-between applying to jobs, I’ve been spending a lot of time just catching up on my advance copy collection. I’ve been running this blog for about four years now, and I get direct emails from publishers along with advance copies through NetGalley. I typically prefer NetGalley though because I only have so much room in my bedroom, and I don’t like to waste physical copies of books if I don’t plan on keeping them.

Today’s blog post comes from a book that I knew about and was interested in, so when I saw it was available on NetGalley, I requested it immediately. Thankfully I was accepted for an advance copy, but because of my backlog it took a few books here and there before I got to an Oral History of Atlantis.

I spread through this book over the course of a day though! It was a quick read for me, as several of the stories within this collection were only a handful of pages long.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to keep going on and on in the introduction.

A collection of short stories on diverse experiences of people, as well as their relationships with others.

Buckle up when you open this collection, as there are quite a few stories packed into this collection. Typically a short story collection only consists of 6-9 stories, but in An Oral History of Atlantis, there are a whopping 15-16 stories packed between the covers of this book. I haven’t read a short story collection with this many stories in a long while, but I was ready to dive into it when I opened it up.

But remember: this is a short story collection, and I think the stories contained within this collection are all very brief at times. If you want something that dives deeper into the world of its characters and setting, then this might not be the book for you. I was kind of getting frustrated with some of the stories because I wanted more than a taste, as it felt more like a conceptual outline written really well that doesn’t take off in a way that excited me.

When it comes to short stories, I find that I’m most interested in the characters and how they drive the narrative of such a short form. They always tell writers who want to write fiction to master the short story before they start writing novels, because if you can execute the short form in a way that works really well, you’re definitely ready for a novel.

I’m not saying that these aren’t good short stories at all—I think they’re well crafted, that’s for sure. Park is a talented writer, and I felt like the worlds of these characters, however brief they may be, came alive on the page and in my brain while I was reading them. I think what I’m getting at more is that they feel loose and open ended in a way that didn’t feel productive for me.

Which is okay, but it’s not what I really want in a short story collection. So while I did come into this one with low expectations, I think I did have expectations on what I wanted from a book full of short stories.

On a different note though, some of the highlights in the collection for me are the titular story (“An Oral History of Atlantis”), “The Wife on Ambien” (which is about a wife on just that and the husband’s resounding sadness about what’s happening when she’s on Ambien), “Seven Women” (which begins describing a legendary NYC editor back in the day and then six other women and people who are mainly around her orbit/life), and “Machine City” (about a student film production and the protagonist’s experiences with it).

Overall Thoughts

I know my review might come across as a little negative at times, but I think the beauty of book blogging, if you’re being introspective about it, is realizing that nothing is truly good or bad. Beauty genuinely is in the eye of the beholder when it comes to art forms and entertainment, so what I might not love could be someone else’s favorite book or movie.

I think this is a good collection, but it wasn’t what I was looking for or to my taste, so I wasn’t as eager about it. And that’s fine, especially as someone else out there might be looking for this kind of collection and would love it. Neither of us are wrong because taste is so incredibly subjective and tailored ot the individual.

All of this is to say: if this is a collection that interests you, definitely pick it up and give it a chance. I think it might be worth finding at your local library or indie bookstore if these sound like stories that you’re interested in. Support authors and form your own opinions outside of strangers on the Internet!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book. I truly appreciate this opportunity and don’t take it for granted.

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