When Mystical Creatures Attack!
Kathleen Founds
4.00 · 8 ratings · Published: 01 Jan 2014
The lives of Janice, Cody, and Ms. Freedman are revealed through in-class essays, letters, therapeutic journal exercises, an advice column, a reality show television transcript, a diary, and a Methodist women’s fundraising cookbook. (Recipes include “Dark Night of the Soul Food,” “Render Unto Caesar Salad,” and “Valley of the Shadow of Death by Chocolate Cake.”) In “Virtue of the Month,” the ghost of Ms. Freedman’s mother argues that suicide is not a choice. In “The Un-Game,” Janice’s chain-smoking nursing home charge composes a dirty limerick. In “The Hall of Old-Testament Miracles,” wax figures of Bible characters come to life, hungry for Cody’s flesh.
Set against a South Texas landscape where cicadas hum and the air smells of taco stands and jasmine flowers, these stories range from laugh-out-loud funny to achingly poignant. This surreal, exuberant collection mines the dark recesses of the soul while illuminating the human heart.
- fantasy 4
- contemporary 3
- funny 3
- literary fiction 3
- coming of age 2
- love triangle 1
- magical realism 1
- low fantasy 1
- Add topics
- format - reader age
- young adult 2
- anthology 1
- content warnings
- mental illness 2
- death / grief 2