Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link

[lightreads]

Pretty Monsters: Stories by Kelly Link

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Kelly Link’s short stories are like other people’s dreams. Except usually when someone pins you down to tell you about a dream they just had because they’re so excited by how weird and meaningful it is, you’re like “…um, okay. Whatever.” Or maybe that’s just me. Other people’s subconsciouses? Boringly impenetrable.



But Kelly Link’s stories are like dreams we’ve all had. There’s something really down deep twisty and disturbing she gets at, some common psychological taproot of cultural metaphor think. Because these stories, they don’t always make sense. They don’t often make sense. I finished several of them and went, “wait . . . what?” Except that they do make sense, somewhere down in the marshes. In a slippery way that’s hard to talk about.



“Magic for Beginners” – My favorite, I think. Which is odd, because it’s the New Weirdest of them all, and I’m not into New Weird. It’s about a fifteen-year-old boy and his friends who watch a TV show that might be from another dimension, and a wedding chapel in Vegas, and a painting, and first kisses and – well, it’s really about how we tell stories about people dying. It’s just awesome and fuckin’ weird, trust me.



“Monster” –An interrogation of the classic horror short story about boys at summer camp, while also being a really good one in its own right. Eek.



“The Surfer” – A kinda scifi kinda coming of age story about a teenaged boy in Costa Rican quarantine while the world waits to see how bad this flu epidemic will be, also aliens and soccer. One of the…younger stories, I think, but still so vivid and psychological.



“Pretty Monsters” – Another one that plays with classic horror tropes, but this time with a neat twist flip at the end to mess you up about who is the victim and who the monster, and to remind you that horror is really a perspective game.



“The constable of Abal” – One of the more obvious stories (an actual explanation and everything!) and so not one of my favorites.



You can’t download this entire collection, but a lot of Link’s work is available under Creative Commons. Though I highly recommend the audiobook of this collection -- it's a great production.





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