Aprille Clarke returns to her hometown of Ames to launch her debut novel, ‘The Case of Elena and Everything That Went Wrong’, at 6.30pm Sunday at Dog-Eared Books.

Clarke’s book is a magical realism collection of interlocking short stories, which feature overlapping characters and share plot threads.

Clarke graduated in 1995 from Ames High School. She received her BA in Spanish and her MA in Comparative Literature-Translation from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, where she lives with her husband and three children.

As an undergraduate Spanish student, Clarke found herself reading Latin American short stories.

“It’s the foundation of magical realism as a genre, which intrigued me in this direction of magical and bizarre things happening in an everyday context – a world of everyday life where strange things happen to people” , said Clarke.

Clarke combines this magical realism with overlapping short stories, a trend she became passionate about while reading certain American authors.

“I wanted to combine those influences and create a world of my own,” she said.

Each chapter of Clarke’s novel is titled to begin with the words “The Case of”. For example, the first chapter is “The Case of Clair, the Reverse Kangaroo”.

Clair is the mother of the main character, Elena. When Clair is stressed, time stands still.

“It allows him to work through his frustrations and his emotions before the world turns on again. It’s something I’ve often wished I could do when things got overwhelming,” Clarke said. “It’s kind of a fulfillment of my fantasy, I think. But it goes in different directions in Clair’s case.

The notion of the reverse kangaroo is a biological concept that Clarke became aware of. When a small baby kangaroo first makes its way to its mother’s pouch, it may abort its gestation if circumstances are dire, such as a forest fire, drought, or lack of food.

“Clair is kind of a reverse kangaroo because she doesn’t stop her own development when things go wrong, she stops everything else,” Clarke said.

Chapter Two, “The Case of Jason, Who Steals in Economics”, is about a man who is into a robbery and finds something troubling when he opens his tray table. Something the size of a notebook of five subjects collapses, and he quickly realizes it’s a dehydrated man.

“He pours water into the man’s mouth, and he plumps up and rehydrates,” Clarke said. “Jason learns that this man bought a deeply discounted plane ticket, and that allows the airline to pile people up like cargo. They didn’t put him in the hold in time, so they got him got stuck on the set table.

“Stories are all like this – people living normal lives but then strange things happen.”

Characters overlap between stories. Some characters appear in more than one story or are mentioned by other characters.

Clarke said she always found it rewarding to discover overlaps between stories in the writings of other authors.

“It makes me feel like a little detective and I just figured out that connection,” she said.

The book launch event is Sunday at Dog-Eared Books

Clarke said she was excited to launch her book at Ames’ independent bookstore, Dog-Eared Books, located at 203 Main St. in Ames.

“The store looks like such a treasure to have here. It looks like a big city bookstore in downtown Ames,” she said.

After:With a shop dog and a liquor license, Dog-Eared Books opens Monday. We have a preview.

The book launch will include a reading by Clarke, a Q&A session and free time for autographs and discussions.

Hosting your first book event at Ames is special, Clarke said.

“It’s really cool, because Ames is a place where I had a lot of support in my early years. I had great teachers at school who told me I was a writer and who believed in me,” she said.

Clarke gave special thanks to Kirk Daddow, a longtime English teacher at Ames High who was also a faculty sponsor for the school’s literary magazine, Scratch Pad.

“It was a world that really made me feel like I could achieve those dreams,” she said.