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Stranger Things Happen

Kelly Link

356 pages

A delightfully off-kilter descent into a world where the mundane and the magical collide with deadpan absurdity.

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What it feels like

Reading this collection feels like stepping into a familiar room only to realize the furniture is breathing and the shadows are whispering your name. The pace is steady, allowing the dreamlike logic of each story to wash over you at its own peculiar rhythm. It is a deeply surreal experience, anchored by a narrative voice that is wry, deadpan, and entirely unfazed by the bizarre events unfolding. The mood shifts effortlessly from playful whimsy to a quiet, lingering melancholy, exploring the absurdity of grief and the hidden magic lurking in everyday life. It will delight readers who love slipstream fiction and modern fairy tales, offering an enchanting, slightly unsettling journey that leaves you looking at the real world just a little bit differently.

Mood
  • dreamlike
  • eerie
  • surreal
  • off-kilter
Tone
  • deadpan
  • wry
  • playful
  • unsettling
Pace
steady
Themes
modern fairy tales · the absurdity of grief · hidden magic in the mundane · fractured identities
The writing
Matter-of-fact and deceptively conversational, treating the bizarre and the everyday with the exact same deadpan weight.
The arc
The reader is lured in by playful absurdity before being gently submerged into profound, lingering melancholy and wonder.
Who it's for
Fans of slipstream fiction and dark, modern fairy tales who enjoy feeling slightly disoriented in the best possible way.
Content notes
  • grief and loss
  • apocalyptic themes
  • mild body horror

About the book

This first collection by award-winning author Kelly Link takes fairy tales and cautionary tales, dictators and extraterrestrials, amnesiacs and honeymooners, revenants and readers alike, on a voyage into new, strange, and wonderful territory. The girl detective must go to the underworld to solve the case of the tap-dancing bank robbers. A librarian falls in love with a girl whose father collects artificial noses. A dead man posts letters home to his estranged wife. Two women named Louise begin a series of consecutive love affairs with a string of cellists. A newly married couple become participants in an apocalyptic beauty pageant. Sexy blond aliens invade New York City. A young girl learns how to make herself disappear.

These eleven extraordinary stories are quirky, spooky, and smart. They all have happy endings. Every story contains a secret prize. Each story was written especially for you.

Stories from Stranger Things Happen have won the Nebula, Tiptree, and World Fantasy Award. Stranger Things Happen was a Salon Book of the Year, one of the Village Voice's 25 Favorite Books of 2001, and was nominated for the Firecracker Alternative Book Award.

Contents: - Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (1998) - Water Off a Black Dog's Back (1995) - The Specialist's Hat (1998) - Flying Lessons (1995) - Travels with the Snow Queen (1996/1997) - Vanishing Act (1996) - Survivor's Ball, or, The Donner Party (1998) - Shoe and Marriage (2000) - Most of My Friends Are Two-Thirds Water (2001) - Louise's Ghost (2001) - The Girl Detective (1999)

Description from Open Library.

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