Ling Ma’s new short story collection, Bliss Montage, ends with a story called “Tomorrow,” about a woman named Eve who discovers she’s pregnant and then, disturbingly, that the fetus’s arm is sticking down through her cervix and out of her vagina. After the doctor tells her this is normal, an effect of since-discontinued hygiene products and other regularly consumed toxic materials, Eve books a six-month trip to her (unspecified) country of origin, where she will spend the bulk of her pregnancy.

Held at a distance by Ma’s deadpan, matter-of-fact prose style, we are not privy to Eve’s decision-making process. She learns she’s pregnant, she is surprised, and then, suddenly, she has decided to become a mother. Pregnancy has flipped a switch in her mind, it seems, and created an inarticulable chasm, unbridgeable even by the author, between us and her.

Why would I accept this chasm, I ask myself as I read “Tomorrow.” I want to demand an explanation. I want to know why Ma’s characters are so far away, not just in this story, but in all of the stories in Bliss Montage.