Short Stories, Irish literature, Classics, Modern Fiction, Contemporary Literary Fiction, The Japanese Novel, Post Colonial Asian Fiction, The Legacy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and quality Historical Novels are Among my Interests








Sunday, May 29, 2022

“Stone Animals” by Kelly Link - A Short Story - included in Magic for Beginners - 2006


 


“Stone Animals” by Kelly Link - A Short Story - included in Magic for Beginners - 2006



Kelly Link was a 2018 MacArthur Genius Grant winner.  The announcement on the MacArthur Website has a very good over view of her importance.


Website  of Kelly Link- Today’s story and several others are linked here.


My post from May 22, 2015 on “Valley of the Girls” by Kelly Link


Seven years ago i first read a story by Kelly Link, two years ago I read her “The Fairy Handbag”.  


“Stone Animals” starts out as a mainstream family life story.  A married couple, mid-thirties, with a two young children are preparing  to move from their apartment to their first house. The children are apprehensive, the adults excited. He works in real estate, she stays home. Things slowly get very strange.


The new house has two stone animals at the entrance.  The yard has a lot of wild rabbits.  You may never look at rabbits the same way after this story.


I just do not want go too much into this tremendously fun, thought provoking story.  The more I got into it, fifty four pages, the more intrigued I became and I want others to have this opporunity. 


I also read this month from the same collection, “Catskin”, which enthralled me.  A great Witch story. I still have six stories left to read in Magic for Beginners as well as eight in her second collection, Get in Trouble.


“Kelly Link is the author of the collections Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, Pretty Monsters, and Get in Trouble. Her short stories have been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The Best American Short Stories, and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards. She is a 2018 MacArthur Fellow and has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. She and Gavin J. Grant have co-edited a number of anthologies, including multiple volumes of The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and, for young adults, Steampunk! and Monstrous Affections. She is the co-founder of Small Beer Press and co-edits the occasional zine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet.

Link was born in Miami, Florida. She currently lives with her husband and daughter, dog, and chickens in Northampton, Massachusetts.” From Kellylink.net


Mel Ulm





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