Monstrous Alterations - by Christopher Barzak (Paperback)

About the Book

From the Brothers Grimm to Kafka, Christopher Barzak imaginatively traverses the history of the dark and the fantastic and returns with new tales for an ever-changing world.

Book Synopsis

In this new collection from Shirley Jackson Award-winning author Christopher Barzak, discover stories where fairy tales, gothic narratives, and classic monster stories are transformed into new wonders. A princess who yearns only for freedom dances her nights away at clubs in defiance of tradition. A young man plots revenge on his murderer from the underworld. Two friends discover a goblin market where they are offered the fruit of forbidden love. On the streets of London, a man destroys a little girl's life in an instant. The caretaker for a woman confined to her room frees her from the circumstances that have bound her. A maid at an inn discovers the powerlessness and power of invisibility. A teenager, locked into Kensington Gardens after closing time, is brought face to face with the reality of a childhood icon. A man is born, grows up, and dies, all within the span of a day. A bank clerk determines to save himself and his friend from the destinies their overbearing fathers have made for them. From the Brothers Grimm to Kafka, Barzak imaginatively traverses the history of the dark and the fantastic and returns with new tales for an ever-changing world.

Review Quotes

"Christopher Barzak is a skilled tailor of estranged tales. In Monstrous Alterations, he warps our collective literary unconscious, reintroducing us to familiar characters and settings via unfamiliar ways and means. These stories re-enchant the world." - Matthew Cheney, author of The Last Vanishing Man

"In Monstrous Alterations, Christopher Barzak fashions old tales into modern marvels, trimming, embellishing, and turning them inside out. A spellbound tailor, he is both witty with his scissors and entranced by his source material, enmeshed in Poe, Kafka, Christina Rossetti, and the vast fairy tale tradition. These stories display not only the power of craft but the helplessness of desire: that intoxicating stuff we call inspiration." - Sofia Samatar, author of A Stranger in Olondria

"Teasing out themes of class, gender, and forbidden desire, these 10 tales shine in the care they show their formerly voiceless subjects." - Publishers Weekly