Ruin

The stories in the collection deal with the existential lives of characters living in an American State in freefall, they are timely, dystopic, strange, and hopeful.
The story “The Paragrapher” is where Hoffman first wrote about Flynn, who became the protagonist of her best-selling novel So Much Pretty. That book was named Best Suspense Novel of the Year by the New York Times Book Review and sparked a national dialog on violence and retribution.
Cara Hoffman is an award winning, critically acclaimed novelist who work has been reviewed in every major outlet in the US. This is her first short story collection.
The stories in RUIN are interconnected like a puzzle with small details coming together to link them, as well as reoccurring characters.
The cover of the RUIN is a still from the film 'Inside this Little House' by David Wojnarowicz, given to Cara by the estate of David Wojnarowicz. Cara's work continues the tradition of his work—queer, anti-state, and anti-authoritarian art and literature—like Wojnarowicz she was self-educated and transient for part of her youth. The title RUIN references the Wojnarowicz essay "Soon all This Will be Picturesque Ruins" A phrase Wojnarowicz took from the cover of Fifth Estate magazine, a publication for which Cara wrote for many years.
Cara wrote the first stories in RUIN when she was living in Northern Appalachia and working odd jobs, she wrote the last stories after leaving the United States for Greece and becoming a resident alien. She now lives in occupied Exarchia in the center of Athens.
Cara had many of the jobs the characters in RUIN have including working as a pesticide handler, a beekeeper, and a crime reporter.
She is a founding editor of The Anarchist Review of Books, along with Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore.