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Book Reviewed by:A dazzling and daring debut story collection by PEN/Hemingway finalist, Kim Fu.
In the twelve unforgettable tales of Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, the strange is made familiar and the familiar strange, such that a girl growing wings on her legs feels like an ordinary rite of passage, while a bug-infested house becomes an impossible, Kafkaesque nightmare. Each story builds a new world all its own: a group of children steal a haunted doll; a runaway bride encounters a sea monster; a vendor sells toy boxes that seemingly control the passage of time; an insomniac is seduced by the Sandman. These visions of modern life wrestle with themes of death and technological consequence, guilt and sexuality, and unmask the contradictions that exist within all of us.
Mesmerizing, electric, and wholly original, Kim Fu's Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century blurs the boundaries of the real and fantastic, offering intricate and surprising insights into human nature.
LIDDY, FIRST TO FLY
Liddy showed us her ankles during first recess. She lifted the cuffs of her blue corduroys, first one and then the other, as we sat by the broken picnic table in the patch of grass between the parking lot and the basketball court. Chloe and Liddy sat on the table, their feet on what remained of the bench. Mags and I sat in the grass, avoiding the jagged wood. Raised white bumps protruded from Liddy's skin, one on the outside of each ankle, each a few inches above the rounded knob of bone—perfectly symmetrical.
"Blisters from your boots?" I said.
"I don't think so."
Chloe tapped on her phone. "Ringworm," she said, holding out her screen.
Mags recoiled. "Oh, gross. Oh my God."
Liddy stopped poking at the bumps just long enough to glance over. "It doesn't look like that."
"Maybe you should go to the doctor," I said.
"They just look like zits to me," Mags said. "Big ones."
"My mom won't take me to the doctor for some zits on my legs."
"...
It's a versatile collection that shows the author's range. Some seasoned readers of speculative short fiction may feel that Fu isn't breaking a lot of new ground. She relies heavily on tropes, even if she is subverting them. But the ingenuity of each story's world and the author's stylized language — what one might call grotesque poetry — are twin engines that propel the reader through the darker and more absurd recesses of Fu's imagination...continued
Full Review
(726 words)
(Reviewed by Lisa Butts).
Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Ghost Variations
Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century is one of those rare collections that never suffers from which-one-was-that-again? syndrome. Every story here lights a flame in the memory, shining brighter as time goes by rather than dimming. Kim Fu writes with grace, wit, mischief, daring, and her own deep weird phosphorescent understanding. Lucy Tan, author of What We Were Promised
Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century is for the adventurous reader―someone willing to walk into a story primed for cultural critique and suddenly come across a plot for murder, or to consider the dangers of sea monsters alongside those posed by 21st century ennui. Each story is spectacularly smart, hybrid in genre, and bold with intention. The monsters here are not only fantastical figures brought to life in hyper-reality but also the strangest parts of the human heart. This book is as moving as it is monumental. Peter Ho Davies, author of A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself
How I loved the cool wit of these speculative stories! Filled with wonder and wondering, they're haunted too by loss and loneliness, their imaginative reach profoundly rooted in the human condition.
In one story from Kim Fu's collection Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, an insomniac character is visited by the Sandman and subsequently finds it much easier to fall asleep. There is no consensus among experts as to the origin of the Sandman in folklore, as it is believed to be part of a long history of stories passed from generation to generation and from culture to culture. In many versions of the story, the Sandman sprinkles sand into a child's eyes to make them fall asleep. This element is likely borrowed from Scandinavian folklore.
The earliest written work featuring the character is believed to be German Romantic author E.T.A. Hoffmann's short story "Der Sandmann," published in 1816. (Hoffmann is also known for his ...
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