The Doll's Alphabet - by Camilla Grudova (Paperback)

About the Book

Surreal, ambitious and exquisitely conceived, these are stories in the tradition of Angela Carter, Franz Kafta, and Margaret Atwood.

Book Synopsis

Surreal, ambitious and exquisitely conceived, these are stories in the tradition of Angela Carter, Franz Kafta, and Margaret Atwood.

Review Quotes

"A canny collage artist with an eye for the comically macabre, Grudova scavenges her images from Victorian and Edwardian aesthetics. Against this background, her ironies and insights about the inequalities in relationships between men and women feel startlingly current." --Publishers Weekly

"The comic grotesqueries that emerge from this collection owe a bit to Dickens, Kafka and Heinrich Hoffmann's 'Der Struwwelpeter, ' but their total effect is delightfully unclassifiable . . . .The world [The Doll's Alphabet] inhabits--droll, inexplicable and even beautiful in its slovenly fashion--is unlike any other I've encountered." --The Wall Street Journal

"That I cannot say what all these stories are about is a testament to their worth. They have been haunting me for days now. They have their own, highly distinct flavour, and the inevitability of uncomfortable dreams." --The Guardian

"Grudova's method of storytelling is highly imaginative and incredibly ambitious." --Chicago Review of Books

"The effect of the absurd, unnatural, cruel, and unfair social rules in these stories is to cast light on how absurd, unnatural, cruel, and unfair the rules of contemporary society can be." --Kirkus

"A remarkable collection akin to a cabinet of infinite curiosities or a hall of mirrors, The Doll's Alphabet disgusts and delights in equal measure." --Chicago Review of Books

"Grudova's style is an exotic cocktail: three parts magic realism, two parts dystopian, and a splash of extreme feminism. However, there is a playful intelligence driving these weird stories and a real talent that can't be dismissed--even when she seems most eccentric." --Daily Mail

"[Grudova's] stories not only absorb the most fantastic of elements but normalize them, often to deeply troubling effect." --National Post

"Grudova does mermaids and magic, but she also does moldy, dingy, scratch-and-sniff interiors that reek of cabbage and old shoes... Grudova's descriptions are crooked and revelatory." --Harper's Magazine

"[The Doll's Alphabet] is a meticulously crafted modern gothic, thoughtful in its explorations of femininity and what can survive in darkness." --The Riveter

"The literary love child of Ludmilla Petrushevskaya and Margaret Atwood, Grudova alternates between stories of the supernatural and stories of humanity; it's difficult to say which is more unnerving." --Literary Hub

"Fans of authors Alexandra Kleeman and Ameila Gray or the films of David Lynch and David Cronenberg will be delighted. Grudova is undeniably talented and someone to watch." --Library Journal

"If fairytales could dream, this nightmarish collection is what you might end up with. . . . Grudova very efficiently spins us into her weird web." --Times Literary Supplement

"The world building is intricate and beautiful, and it's an amazing portrait of the uncanny." --Literary Hub

"The stories included in [Grudova's] debut collection [The Doll's Alphabet are at once macabre and wondrous. . . . Grudova's imagination is

About the Author

Camilla Grudova: Camilla Grudova lives in Toronto. She holds a degree in Art History and German from McGill University, Montreal. Her fiction has appeared in The White Review and Granta.