Animal Kingdom Stories

by Alex Behr

Tender, erotic, and damned, the nineteen stories in Animal Kingdom are inspired by Behr’s grief. It explores desire and searches for meaning from chaos and loss. With piercing humor, the collection explores a couple bonding over alien visitations, the brutal accommodations in a marriage between musicians, sexuality during menopause, and a teen girl’s bruising path to feminism via her Fender guitar. The stories share the theme that humans can’t escape their primal urges and are intelligent animals in the flawed kingdom we all share.

“Nineteen turbulent stories recount love, loss, and punk rock through the lens of midlife.” 

—Kirkus Book Reviews

Out in the world 11/3/26

ISBN. 139798950348068

Playlist

Samples from Collection

Cat Rituals

The Problem Was Starting

Portland Book Festival

Portland’s Annual Book Festival is returning on Nov. 7, sponsored by Literary Arts.

Alex will be reading in a Pop-Up event at the Portland Art Museum — time and location to come.

Powell’s Book Launch

City of Books, E Burnside, Portland

In conversation with Mary Rechner

Wed, 11/11 at 7 PM

Grief Stick

by Alex Behr

Poetry chapbook published by Picture Frame Press. 1st edition is sold out. 2nd and 3rd editions available here:

“Alex Behr’s GRIEF STICK is a beautiful and shattering real-life love story that cuts deep and true.”

—Powell’s Staff Pick, Recommended by Kevin Sampsell

Planet Grim Stories

by Alex Behr

In twenty-eight stories that draw blood while making you laugh, Alex Behr’s debut collection PLANET GRIM is a vivid, unsettling portrait of the gritty fringes of San Francisco and Portland, where complicated characters long for connection just out of reach. Behr is an idiosyncratic, unpredictable prose stylist with an edge and willingness to cut to the bone that makes her writing truly original.

Available here:

ISBN. 9780998409221

7.13 Books