“There was no longer any solid foundation to the world. It was all just stories.“

A beautifully rendered, terrifying and often dark collection of eight short stories that somehow manage to balance the many avenues of man’s terrible brutality with the boundless tenderness of love — be it that of a mother for her child, or a Greek god, smitten by a handsome and deeply vulnerable mortal.

With brilliantly-reconsidered stories inspired by Greek mythology, Virginia Wolf, or even H.G. Wells’ Island of Dr Moreau, these tales are endlessly fascinating. The author delights in playing with the concept of reality — constructed, imagined, consciously-streamed or spiritually influenced, what we consider real and what must be illusory is stretched like taffy across these stories, as humans like us — cowards, bullies, the piteous and the self/absorbed (and even those considered monsters) live out the literary lot we are charged with, wherever it may take us.

I loved these stories, many of which will stick with me, begging for another read.

Note: for sensitive readers, some tales contain child or animal cruelty (recognizably coming) that may require skipping a paragraph or two.

A great big thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.

IN 2003 I read Haddon’s book, “The curious incident of the dog in the night-time”, about a boy with ASD who is trying to find out what happened to the neighbor dog? I loved it. Brilliant writing. Unique story telling. Fast forward twenty years. Haddon’s new book of short stories touches on mental health, family, Greek mythology and of course animals and monsters. Dogs, foxes, apes, deer and more connect these stories. While the animals are clear, the monsters in this collection could be both animals or human. I loved a lot of these stories, but there were a few about Greek mythology that didn’t tickle my fancy. Wasn’t for me. Overall, a good collection.
3.5 dogs wagging their tails.

I don't really like short stories, but I like Mark Haddon so I figured we'd give it a shot. It was good, but very very dark. Obviously some stories were far better than others, and they were all varying in length, but I think the common theme (other than their darkness) was that they just ended so suddenly. There was little to tie up a lot of the stories, none having any semblance of finality which drives me insane. I h.a.t.e open endings or feeling like I'm missing something so it did not sit well for me.

Other than that though, the writing was amazing. It didn't take long to be fully emerged in the story which oftentimes for something so short it's hard to do. Definitely not sure where to rate this, so to b e safe we're going to go very mid level. If you enjoy short stories, or sad ones, this is a really good book. If you like well written and interesting ones, also a good one. But if you don't like short stories, unfinished/rushed/ambiguous endings (like me) you may no love it.

Thank you so much for this ARC!