NATIONAL BESTSELLER - "The Brothers Grimm meet Black Mirror meets
Alice in Wonderland. . . . In seven remixed fairy tales, Link delivers
wit and dreamlike intrigue."--Time
"Thought-provoking and wonderfully told . . . so seamlessly entwines
the real with the surreal that the stories threaten to slip into
reality, resonating long after reading."--BuzzFeed
A new collection from one of today's finest short story writers,
MacArthur "Genius Grant" fellow Kelly Link, bestselling author of the
Pulitzer Prize finalist Get in Trouble--featuring illustrations by
award-winning artist Shaun Tan
Finding seeds of inspiration in the stories of the Brothers Grimm,
seventeenth-century French lore, and Scottish ballads, Kelly Link spins
classic fairy tales into utterly original stories of seekers--characters
on the hunt for love, connection, revenge, or their own sense of
purpose.
In "The White Cat's Divorce," an aging billionaire sends his three sons
on a series of absurd goose chases to decide which child will become his
heir. In "The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear," a professor with a delicate
health condition becomes stranded for days in an airport hotel after a
conference, desperate to get home to her wife and young daughter, and in
acute danger of being late for an appointment that cannot be missed. In
"Skinder's Veil," a young man agrees to take over a remote house-sitting
gig for a friend. But what should be a chance to focus on his
long-avoided dissertation instead becomes a wildly unexpected journey,
as the house seems to be a portal for otherworldly travelers--or perhaps
a door into his own mysterious psyche.
Twisting and turning in astonishing ways, expertly blending realism and
the speculative, witty, empathetic, and never predictable--these stories
remind us once again of why Kelly Link is incomparable in the realm of
short fiction.
