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Other Worlds: Stories
The award-winning author of Fifteen Dogs conjures up worlds – real, invented, uncanny – in this ingenious, electrifying collection.
A Trinidadian Obeah man finds himself reborn, a hundred years after his death, in the body of a Canadian child. A writer takes up a seasonal job as the caretaker of a set of mysterious large sacks hanging from the rafters of the houses in a small town. A woman starts a relationship with the famous artist who painted portraits of her mother. The contents of a sealed envelope upend a woman’s understanding about a tragic crime she committed at the age of six.
In this dazzling collection of stories, André Alexis draws fresh connections between worlds: the ones we occupy, the ones we imagine, and the ones that preceded our own. He introduces us to characters during moments of profound puzzlement, and transports us from 19th century Trinidad and Tobago to small-town Ontario, from Amherst, Massachusetts to contemporary Toronto.
These captivating stories reveal flashes of reckoning, defeat, despair, alienation, and understanding, all the while playfully using a multitude of literary genres, including gothic horror and isekai, and referencing works from greats like Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, Yasunari Kawabata, Witold Gombrowicz, and Tomasso Landolfi.
Masterfully crafted, blending poignant philosophical inquiry and wry humour tinged with the absurd, here are worlds refracted and reflected back to us with pristine clarity and stunning emotional resonance as only André Alexis can.
A Trinidadian Obeah man finds himself reborn, a hundred years after his death, in the body of a Canadian child. A writer takes up a seasonal job as the caretaker of a set of mysterious large sacks hanging from the rafters of the houses in a small town. A woman starts a relationship with the famous artist who painted portraits of her mother. The contents of a sealed envelope upend a woman’s understanding about a tragic crime she committed at the age of six.
In this dazzling collection of stories, André Alexis draws fresh connections between worlds: the ones we occupy, the ones we imagine, and the ones that preceded our own. He introduces us to characters during moments of profound puzzlement, and transports us from 19th century Trinidad and Tobago to small-town Ontario, from Amherst, Massachusetts to contemporary Toronto.
These captivating stories reveal flashes of reckoning, defeat, despair, alienation, and understanding, all the while playfully using a multitude of literary genres, including gothic horror and isekai, and referencing works from greats like Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, Yasunari Kawabata, Witold Gombrowicz, and Tomasso Landolfi.
Masterfully crafted, blending poignant philosophical inquiry and wry humour tinged with the absurd, here are worlds refracted and reflected back to us with pristine clarity and stunning emotional resonance as only André Alexis can.
288 pages, Paperback
Published May 6, 2025
56 people are currently reading
1699 people want to read
About the author
André Alexis
21 books622 followersAndré Alexis was born in Trinidad and grew up in Canada. His most recent novel, Fifteen Dogs, won the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. His debut novel, Childhood, won the Books in Canada First Novel Award, the Trillium Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and the Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. His other books include Pastoral (nominated for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize), Asylum, Beauty and Sadness, Ingrid & the Wolf, Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa and Lambton, Kent and Other Vistas: A Play.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
November 10, 2025
If you know me in person you know that I'm absolutely obsessed with Alexis' writing style and the way he handles themes of language and home and that I can't shut up about it (I'd say I'm sorry but I'm not, you knew how I was when you decided to let me stick around). I have to do myself violence to not devour his back catalogue, this collection of short stories has done absolutely nothing to reduce the amount of violence I have to do myself.
Some of these stories flirted with horror quite heavily, the imagery often made it to the heavy petting stage with horror, and I was enthralled.
I loved the way locales were quietly made to be characters of their own, it was something that happened in the small details and small connections/parallels between stories and I was delighted by it.
I read this book while there was a minor kerfuffle in the boktok/boosta world about a reviewer who thought that words like personified and forwardness were thesaurus words and thusly berated the author for using big words so Alexis casually dropping words like phonemes made me chuckle. So, yeah, If you like an elegant use of language this book and author will most likely charm you.
Some of these stories flirted with horror quite heavily, the imagery often made it to the heavy petting stage with horror, and I was enthralled.
I loved the way locales were quietly made to be characters of their own, it was something that happened in the small details and small connections/parallels between stories and I was delighted by it.
I read this book while there was a minor kerfuffle in the boktok/boosta world about a reviewer who thought that words like personified and forwardness were thesaurus words and thusly berated the author for using big words so Alexis casually dropping words like phonemes made me chuckle. So, yeah, If you like an elegant use of language this book and author will most likely charm you.
May 16, 2025
New favourite author unlocked.
February 22, 2026
This was such a treat!
I’ve previously read two of Alexis’s books, from his “Quincunx” series (five interconnected but standalone stories), and come away somewhat puzzled but very clear that I wanted to read more of this author. And with this collection of short stories, we finally clicked.
André Alexis is best known for Fifteen Dogs, a…well… puzzling tale of Greek Gods testing their philosophical theories on a bunch of dogs in Toronto. A lot of people really loved this book, and it won Canada’s Giller Prize. I am not much interested in dogs, which is maybe why I preferred Ring, Alexis’s foray into writing a romance. I am not a romance reader, and he is not a romance writer, and perhaps that’s why I liked it so much.
In his final piece (“story” seems the wrong word) in this book, Alexis talks about genre experiments. His quincunx famously experimented with a new genre in each book: pastoral, apologue, romance, travel narrative, mystery. Here he is on my home turf: literary writing with a touch of the fantastic. Here he writes:
I’m careful to observe the conventions of a genre. It would be a fatuous game otherwise…when I begin writing in an unfamiliar genre, there is the fear that I don’t know what I’m doing, that I’m poaching on foreign ground.
He links this to his own sense of cultural homelessness, perpetually an immigrant but one who arrived as a small child, who should be at home, but isn’t entirely.
Many of these stories are also immigrant tales, originating or linked to Alexis’s birth country, Trinidad. In the opening novella, “Contrition: An Isekai,” a shaman in 19th century Trinidad dies and is reborn in the body of a teenage boy in contemporary Ontario. Though not all these stories are linked, this one will be invoked again, coming full circle. I absolutely adored this story, finding it very touching but also very funny.
I had already read “Houynhym,” in the New Yorker but its exploration of the death of a father by way of a talking horse rewarded a reread. And then we came to, what, for me, was the unexpected jewel of the collection. “Winter; Near Palgrave,” in which a writer spends winter in a small, unnamed town in Ontario, where the locals all hibernate naked in large sacks, and he must go and check on them throughout the winter. If that sounds like an unpromising premise—it isn’t at all.
Here, unfortunately, the collection and I hit a bit of a snag. Alexis has a very distinctive voice as a writer. It is very proper, very leisurely. All his sentences unfold very elegantly, with many subjective clauses. It’s a style that reminds me of writers who write English very proficiently but who are not native speakers and who learned it from books—Hisham Matar springs to mind. But Alexis is a native speaker, admittedly one who says he doesn’t feel at home in either his country or his language. Be that as it may, this authorial voice had been delighting me, calming me, and making me laugh, but when I hit a patch of weaker stories, it became very, very aggravating.
I was beginning to hate the book I had been loving so passionately, when luckily it picked up again in the last three stories.
While not quite the five star rave I was originally expecting, there are a handful of stories here that I consider simply perfect. It has some lovely, humane but also funny descriptions of character:
Médard Albouy did not dislike people. He had studied medicine and magic out of respect for those who stood to benefit most from his work: people. But he was one of those who love the idea of humanity while mistrusting specific instances of it.
Strangely, for a book called “Other Worlds,” and touching unapologetically on the fantastic, the magical elements of this book all felt very true to me. What felt other—which is I believe the point—was the quotidian world: A Southern Ontario that always felt like a place in a novel rather than a place I know somewhat, the parents who are sometimes “unfaithful, untruthful, unkind,” the languages that people speak or don’t speak, or speak only enough to know how much of the meaning they are missing.
In his final piece, Alexis reference the German unheimlich, the uncanny or literally the unhomely. This protean author, who slips between influences, languages and cultures to end in somewhere never quite real… is always that.
I’ve previously read two of Alexis’s books, from his “Quincunx” series (five interconnected but standalone stories), and come away somewhat puzzled but very clear that I wanted to read more of this author. And with this collection of short stories, we finally clicked.
André Alexis is best known for Fifteen Dogs, a…well… puzzling tale of Greek Gods testing their philosophical theories on a bunch of dogs in Toronto. A lot of people really loved this book, and it won Canada’s Giller Prize. I am not much interested in dogs, which is maybe why I preferred Ring, Alexis’s foray into writing a romance. I am not a romance reader, and he is not a romance writer, and perhaps that’s why I liked it so much.
In his final piece (“story” seems the wrong word) in this book, Alexis talks about genre experiments. His quincunx famously experimented with a new genre in each book: pastoral, apologue, romance, travel narrative, mystery. Here he is on my home turf: literary writing with a touch of the fantastic. Here he writes:
I’m careful to observe the conventions of a genre. It would be a fatuous game otherwise…when I begin writing in an unfamiliar genre, there is the fear that I don’t know what I’m doing, that I’m poaching on foreign ground.
He links this to his own sense of cultural homelessness, perpetually an immigrant but one who arrived as a small child, who should be at home, but isn’t entirely.
Many of these stories are also immigrant tales, originating or linked to Alexis’s birth country, Trinidad. In the opening novella, “Contrition: An Isekai,” a shaman in 19th century Trinidad dies and is reborn in the body of a teenage boy in contemporary Ontario. Though not all these stories are linked, this one will be invoked again, coming full circle. I absolutely adored this story, finding it very touching but also very funny.
I had already read “Houynhym,” in the New Yorker but its exploration of the death of a father by way of a talking horse rewarded a reread. And then we came to, what, for me, was the unexpected jewel of the collection. “Winter; Near Palgrave,” in which a writer spends winter in a small, unnamed town in Ontario, where the locals all hibernate naked in large sacks, and he must go and check on them throughout the winter. If that sounds like an unpromising premise—it isn’t at all.
Here, unfortunately, the collection and I hit a bit of a snag. Alexis has a very distinctive voice as a writer. It is very proper, very leisurely. All his sentences unfold very elegantly, with many subjective clauses. It’s a style that reminds me of writers who write English very proficiently but who are not native speakers and who learned it from books—Hisham Matar springs to mind. But Alexis is a native speaker, admittedly one who says he doesn’t feel at home in either his country or his language. Be that as it may, this authorial voice had been delighting me, calming me, and making me laugh, but when I hit a patch of weaker stories, it became very, very aggravating.
I was beginning to hate the book I had been loving so passionately, when luckily it picked up again in the last three stories.
While not quite the five star rave I was originally expecting, there are a handful of stories here that I consider simply perfect. It has some lovely, humane but also funny descriptions of character:
Médard Albouy did not dislike people. He had studied medicine and magic out of respect for those who stood to benefit most from his work: people. But he was one of those who love the idea of humanity while mistrusting specific instances of it.
Strangely, for a book called “Other Worlds,” and touching unapologetically on the fantastic, the magical elements of this book all felt very true to me. What felt other—which is I believe the point—was the quotidian world: A Southern Ontario that always felt like a place in a novel rather than a place I know somewhat, the parents who are sometimes “unfaithful, untruthful, unkind,” the languages that people speak or don’t speak, or speak only enough to know how much of the meaning they are missing.
In his final piece, Alexis reference the German unheimlich, the uncanny or literally the unhomely. This protean author, who slips between influences, languages and cultures to end in somewhere never quite real… is always that.
May 20, 2025
I finally got around to a Canadian author I’ve been meaning to read, wanting to read, feeling like I was the only book lover who hadn’t read him yet: André Alexis. His latest collection of short stories Other Worlds was released just a few weeks ago, and as May is short story month, I dove right in. He is best known for his award-winning novel Fifteen Dogs which won a TON of awards. It’s about a bunch of dogs who talk and live in their own world, so Alexis is no stranger to including the supernatural or magical in his work. Other Worlds is about just that; worlds like ours but incorporating an unexpected element of whimsical difference. And more talking animals, in this case, a horse.
Book Summary
There are 9 stories spread over 276 pages in this collection, so some are quite long. The stories aren’t linked, however the first and second last story seem to reference the same family, but they are told from such different perspectives that I can’t quite say that it’s the exact same people for certain. Regardless, both “Contrition: An Isekai” and “Consolation” are powerful stories on their own, the first following the rebirth of an old man into a young boy’s body 100 years later, while the second details a man’s musings about his parents’ marriage after his father dies. “Winter, or A Town Near Palgrave” is my favourite, but also the creepiest; it’s about a writer who is invited to take on a caretaking job in a town where all its inhabitants hibernate over the winter in burlap sacks hung up in their homes. “The Bridle Path” also has an uneasy atmosphere to it, where the protagonist is excited to be meeting new and very wealthy friends, but he missteps socially when he questions whether his hosts are cannibals. “Pu Songling: An Appreciation” is the strangest of the bunch, following a medicine man desperate to find an apprentice, but instead he discovers a young woman who he learns just as much from as they discuss their experiences with people returning from the dead.
My Thoughts
The very last story in the collection, “Elegy”, reads much like an analysis of what the author’s intentions were with the collection. The speaker is an author himself, and the life experiences he speaks about match of those of Alexis quite closely, so I’m assuming this character is meant to be a mouthpiece of sorts. In it he writes:
“Predictably, much of my work is a re-creation of the bewilderment that was a dominant emotion of my childhood self – bewilderment and resentment. Rather than directly expressing this bewilderment, however, I have tried to create worlds in which a sympathetic reader will feel a familiarity while struggling to interpret the appearance of certain things, certain signs, certain utterances” (p. 273 of Other Worlds by André Alexis, ARC edition)
I’m strangely desperate to think of myself as a sympathetic reader, but I wholeheartedly agree with what he set out to do, and I believe he accomplishes it. For example, “Houyhnhnm” is the story that incorporates the aforementioned talking horse, and although that is something that we would never recognize as part of our world, (or at least my current reality), the story isn’t about how weird this horse is. The story is about grief; it’s about the connection between the protagonist, the horse, and the protagonist’s parents. And as the story continues we discover it’s actually about the manifestation of grief, and how this grief looks different to all three characters.
Alexis uses these odd circumstances to capture the reader’s attention; the hanging bags of humans for instance. It’s an uncomfortable image, it begins to feel more like a work of horror as he interacts with this bags, even begins to ‘tend’ to them like a Queen Bee or something similar. And yet, it never crosses into the horrific, it leaves lingering questions about our tendency to hibernate in the colder months (at least up here in Canada) but it also addresses this question of creativity, and the distractions we create or focus on when avoiding doing our work, as the author does in this story.
I understand why Alexis’s work is so highly lauded now. There’s so many layers to his writing, and I suspect that if I re-read these stories, I’d continue to find threads I didn’t pick up on my first pass through. These magical elements may not appeal to some, but if you’re willing to just go with it, I think there’s lots to appeal to a wide range of readers here.
To read the rest of my reviews, please visit my blog:
https://ivereadthis.com/
Book Summary
There are 9 stories spread over 276 pages in this collection, so some are quite long. The stories aren’t linked, however the first and second last story seem to reference the same family, but they are told from such different perspectives that I can’t quite say that it’s the exact same people for certain. Regardless, both “Contrition: An Isekai” and “Consolation” are powerful stories on their own, the first following the rebirth of an old man into a young boy’s body 100 years later, while the second details a man’s musings about his parents’ marriage after his father dies. “Winter, or A Town Near Palgrave” is my favourite, but also the creepiest; it’s about a writer who is invited to take on a caretaking job in a town where all its inhabitants hibernate over the winter in burlap sacks hung up in their homes. “The Bridle Path” also has an uneasy atmosphere to it, where the protagonist is excited to be meeting new and very wealthy friends, but he missteps socially when he questions whether his hosts are cannibals. “Pu Songling: An Appreciation” is the strangest of the bunch, following a medicine man desperate to find an apprentice, but instead he discovers a young woman who he learns just as much from as they discuss their experiences with people returning from the dead.
My Thoughts
The very last story in the collection, “Elegy”, reads much like an analysis of what the author’s intentions were with the collection. The speaker is an author himself, and the life experiences he speaks about match of those of Alexis quite closely, so I’m assuming this character is meant to be a mouthpiece of sorts. In it he writes:
“Predictably, much of my work is a re-creation of the bewilderment that was a dominant emotion of my childhood self – bewilderment and resentment. Rather than directly expressing this bewilderment, however, I have tried to create worlds in which a sympathetic reader will feel a familiarity while struggling to interpret the appearance of certain things, certain signs, certain utterances” (p. 273 of Other Worlds by André Alexis, ARC edition)
I’m strangely desperate to think of myself as a sympathetic reader, but I wholeheartedly agree with what he set out to do, and I believe he accomplishes it. For example, “Houyhnhnm” is the story that incorporates the aforementioned talking horse, and although that is something that we would never recognize as part of our world, (or at least my current reality), the story isn’t about how weird this horse is. The story is about grief; it’s about the connection between the protagonist, the horse, and the protagonist’s parents. And as the story continues we discover it’s actually about the manifestation of grief, and how this grief looks different to all three characters.
Alexis uses these odd circumstances to capture the reader’s attention; the hanging bags of humans for instance. It’s an uncomfortable image, it begins to feel more like a work of horror as he interacts with this bags, even begins to ‘tend’ to them like a Queen Bee or something similar. And yet, it never crosses into the horrific, it leaves lingering questions about our tendency to hibernate in the colder months (at least up here in Canada) but it also addresses this question of creativity, and the distractions we create or focus on when avoiding doing our work, as the author does in this story.
I understand why Alexis’s work is so highly lauded now. There’s so many layers to his writing, and I suspect that if I re-read these stories, I’d continue to find threads I didn’t pick up on my first pass through. These magical elements may not appeal to some, but if you’re willing to just go with it, I think there’s lots to appeal to a wide range of readers here.
To read the rest of my reviews, please visit my blog:
https://ivereadthis.com/
August 11, 2025
4 5 stars
If you've read Fifteen Dogs by this author you might understand how this collection of short stories can get under your skin.
To me some of these stories were more successful than others in the collection, but all were beautifully written and thought provoking with some being weirdly funny and some just kind of weird. But I liked them all.
If you've read Fifteen Dogs by this author you might understand how this collection of short stories can get under your skin.
To me some of these stories were more successful than others in the collection, but all were beautifully written and thought provoking with some being weirdly funny and some just kind of weird. But I liked them all.
September 15, 2025
In the quiet moments when I am thinking about nothing in particular, two books wander into my thoughts (this and “the Haunting of Hill House,” not to say that they are similar). I can’t stop thinking about Other Worlds. It is—phew—something. Stays with you, that’s for sure!
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February 23, 2026Hypnotic, majestic, enthralling, thrilling set of stories from a master writer, who can control the reader's emotions like a puppeteer with a string, first conjuring the creep of horror, then relief. In these stories, bewilderment, confusion, suspicions arise upon being thrust into first encounters with a different culture with a gulf of language. This gulf can arise from being of different cultures, different creatures, different times, different social situations. The passage of time, the cooling of heads, the repetition of contact, leads to rapprochement, even understanding. Communication leads to clarìty then catharsis for the displaced characters. With communication-- face to face conversations, missives from a different time-- the characters come to realize that the shadows cast by terrors are much bigger than the objects themselves.
The stories include (light spoilers on the premise follow):
The stories include (light spoilers on the premise follow):
November 13, 2025
4.75*
A stunning collection of short stories, all so different from one another yet connected by the same threads — themes of language, rebirth, identity, and death.
Stories of reincarnation, talking horses, spirituality. Stories of lessons passed down through generations. Stories that certainly felt otherworldly.
When I really pause to think about what I took away from this book, it’s how much I appreciate the way Alexis explores all of these ideas. The way language can be misunderstood, deciphered, interpreted and the implications of each of those actions. The possibility of death and rebirth, the explanations for things we can’t fully make sense of, but that happen anyway. The idea that maybe the reasons lie outside our own breadth of understanding.
But what I found most humbling, concerning, and oddly calming was this reminder that we really only know what we know and, to some extent, what we don’t. There will never come a time when we understand everything there is to know. We’ll always be seeking and searching, and maybe words will never do us justice… or maybe, they’ll simply be enough.
A stunning collection of short stories, all so different from one another yet connected by the same threads — themes of language, rebirth, identity, and death.
Stories of reincarnation, talking horses, spirituality. Stories of lessons passed down through generations. Stories that certainly felt otherworldly.
When I really pause to think about what I took away from this book, it’s how much I appreciate the way Alexis explores all of these ideas. The way language can be misunderstood, deciphered, interpreted and the implications of each of those actions. The possibility of death and rebirth, the explanations for things we can’t fully make sense of, but that happen anyway. The idea that maybe the reasons lie outside our own breadth of understanding.
But what I found most humbling, concerning, and oddly calming was this reminder that we really only know what we know and, to some extent, what we don’t. There will never come a time when we understand everything there is to know. We’ll always be seeking and searching, and maybe words will never do us justice… or maybe, they’ll simply be enough.
December 3, 2025
Great collection, with some more captivating than others. None were too short or too long, and some stories were loosely linked.
“The past preys on the present, but it does no harm, unless you let it.”
“The past preys on the present, but it does no harm, unless you let it.”
December 11, 2024
André Alexis is one of my fave authors so when I saw that he had a new book coming out I was so excited and I read this book right away. I loved Other Worlds! These short stories are so fun and showcases his true masterful storytelling. I really enjoyed his other short story collection The Night Piece and I can tell the evolution to this collection. I loved the nostalgia and how meta these stories are. Several of these stories draw from his life and experiences as they feature characters of Jamaican descent living in Canada and specifically Toronto. The specific mention of Shoppers Drug Mart selling “fresh food” was so funny. Several elements he featured in his previous books such as God and animals are in this book too. The last story which was autofiction was especially good. I’m so glad I got to read this book early!
Thank you to the publisher via NetGalley for my ARC!
Thank you to the publisher via NetGalley for my ARC!
February 16, 2026
I started listening to this one and had to switch at the end of the first short story as I was struggling to follow and know when the story end vs chapter breaks were. It didn’t help that there was a character with the same name in the first two stories. I really enjoyed some of the stories and found others were just a bit too out there for me. Overall I’d give this one 3.5 ⭐️ rounded up to 4 for my goodreads rating.
July 24, 2025
André Alexis is a Canadian national treasure
August 9, 2025
3.31 - a book of short stories just isn’t my thing. Many of them were weird too. It wasn’t unenjoyable to read, but I never felt the urge to pick it up and keep reading
August 10, 2025
Andre Alexis casually throwing his hat into the ring for author of short stories that will haunt you for the rest of your life
November 20, 2025
Interesting and original stories! Liked, but didn't love.
November 8, 2025
first book for my new book club in Vancouver and absolutely loved it!! beautifully written and such an evocative but subtle depiction of diaspora through the stories. loved the blurry line between magic and medicine
January 21, 2026
Loved this. Mysterious short stories. Some shorter than others. Others more like little novellas. So good.
October 21, 2025
“it is difficult to find home when neither you nor those around you are certain who you are and when no physical place corresponds to it” (from ‘an elegy’)
stories about belonging, about loneliness, about shame & delusion, about family, about connection. i need to reread this.
stories about belonging, about loneliness, about shame & delusion, about family, about connection. i need to reread this.
December 5, 2025
Some hits and misses, overall not bad. Not as other worldly as I was hoping, tho...
February 11, 2026
I really enjoyed the first half of the stories and I kinda liked the second half. 3.5.
July 8, 2025
I always look forward to new stories by André Alexis; his prose is gorgeous, his insight and inventiveness terrific, and this collection of short stories does not disappoint.
They range across history and countries, and consider relationships in families, art, the effects of colonialism, and immigration, but the stories within "Other Worlds" are not screeds or polemics. Each is a self contained world and uses humour, keen observation, fantasy and horror elements that are subtly dropped in, and all these together make for interesting reading.
I had my favourites:
-Contrition: An Isekai: where a obeah man misinterprets a colonizer's actions, dies, and is reborn as a descendant of the colonize.
-Houyhnhnm: A son deals with his grief over his father's death, by getting to know and care for his father's horse, who can talk.
-A Certain Likeness: A woman gets to know the artist who painted her mother's likeness years earlier.
-Pu Songling: An Appreciation: An elderly medicine mad is looking for an apprentice.
-An Elegy: An author writes of moving from Trinidad to Canada, and becoming a writer.
There are also images that lingered in my mind, though the one most shocking, was of human-sized bags hanging within houses…
I greatly enjoyed this collection, which again demonstrates Alexis' versatility, imagination, and sensitivity.
Thank you to Netgalley and to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for this ARC in exchange for my review.
They range across history and countries, and consider relationships in families, art, the effects of colonialism, and immigration, but the stories within "Other Worlds" are not screeds or polemics. Each is a self contained world and uses humour, keen observation, fantasy and horror elements that are subtly dropped in, and all these together make for interesting reading.
I had my favourites:
-Contrition: An Isekai: where a obeah man misinterprets a colonizer's actions, dies, and is reborn as a descendant of the colonize.
-Houyhnhnm: A son deals with his grief over his father's death, by getting to know and care for his father's horse, who can talk.
-A Certain Likeness: A woman gets to know the artist who painted her mother's likeness years earlier.
-Pu Songling: An Appreciation: An elderly medicine mad is looking for an apprentice.
-An Elegy: An author writes of moving from Trinidad to Canada, and becoming a writer.
There are also images that lingered in my mind, though the one most shocking, was of human-sized bags hanging within houses…
I greatly enjoyed this collection, which again demonstrates Alexis' versatility, imagination, and sensitivity.
Thank you to Netgalley and to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for this ARC in exchange for my review.
July 8, 2025
Every once in a while I come across a book that is just my brand of weird and Other Worlds is one of those books. I absolutely loved the stories in this book for how unsettling they were. The word he used in his Elegy section, “bewilderment” is exactly the feeling conjured by this collection. A lot of people don’t like to sit in that kind of discomfort and confusion, but I adored this.
October 11, 2025
Eh. I like this author. His work is very Murakami-like in that fantastic things happen in otherwise ordinary lives. And I liked a couple of the short stories in this book. But overall they felt more like stillborn novel ideas than true short stories. Too often the protagonist doesn’t seem changed by the weirdness or anything that happens in the story. It is more like, “this bizarre thing occurred, ended, and then my life went on.” Again, as if he started to write a novel and then realized it wasn’t going anywhere. Short stories also need to go somewhere. And to end on with a bang, not a sigh. Lotta sighs, sadly.
October 3, 2025
While Other Worlds is undeniably well-written, with complete, engaging short stories, strong characters, and satisfying conclusions, the subject matter just didn’t resonate with me personally. Many of the stories draw from Alexis's background and cultural experience, which, while authentic and insightful, revolved around experiences and themes that I found hard to relate to. I can appreciate the craft and quality here, but ultimately, it wasn't a collection I enjoyed.
August 14, 2025
Too weird for my liking. I can't fault the writing but rather the content - way too many corpses and other worldly things for me.
April 2, 2025
Thank the Publisher for granting me this ARC on Netgalley. Alexis is my favorite contemporary author. To me, this short story collection serves as a window into the inside world of André Alexis himself. Though the name of this book is Other Worlds, I saw a lot of similarities between the characters and the author. I like A Certain Likeness and Consolation the most, one for the plot and the other for the deep insight into the author’s childhood trauma. Pleases continue writing!
附中文书评：【Other Worlds：在异世界找寻故土】https://book.douban.com/review/16616775/
我第一次读André Alexis是他去年刊载在纽约客上的短篇《Consolation》，这个故事深刻震撼了我，它探讨家庭秘密，隐瞒欺骗和极致的爱（妻子对丈夫）与极致的轻视（丈夫对妻子）。读到一半，我忍不住说，这一定是作者本人亲身经历，不然他不可能写得出如此细腻的感受和人物反应。
在后记中Alexis提到，他的大部分作品都是对他儿时体验的复刻，那时他是一个迷茫的孩子，对一切困惑不解，又对发生在家庭和自己身上的不公感到怨恨不满。《Consolation》在我眼里，正是他的核心创作意图的完美体现，更是他积淀多年的成果。从开头的平淡到中部的爆发，Alexis用文字回溯了他始自童年又贯穿一生的噩梦——他父亲如何轻视他的母亲，不爱她却把她绑在身边，自己又不停地出轨。Alexis用文字和故事探索记忆和创伤的黑暗边界，过程中，又透露其正直坦诚的内核，这部短篇深深打动了我，也启发我去阅读他其他的作品。
这本25年新书《Other Worlds》正收录了《Consolation》，此外还有其他一系列主题各异的短篇，共同点是“异世界”，它们都带着奇异的世界观设定——《Contrition》是穿越到七岁男孩身上的七十岁男巫，《Houyhnhnm》里的父亲养了一匹能够阅读阿西莫夫的马，《The Bridle Path》里的主角误入富豪食人族。正如结尾后记所说，Alexis在类型小说中构建异世界，用故事让读者共情儿时最困扰他的两种情绪：迷茫和怨恨，又随着人物一同得到解脱。
下面按照我对这些故事的理解，把它们分为两类再按篇目记录一下阅读感受：
一、Alexis本人的人生故事：《Contrition: An Isekai》，《Houyhnhnm》，《Consolation》
这三篇的设定和叙事都与作者本人的经历十分接近，而《Contrition》和《Consolation》分别被编排在第一篇和最后一篇，形成了一种巧妙的回环。
在《Contrition》里，一个七十岁的老男巫穿越到了七岁孩子的身体里。他有一对深爱他的父母，但，由于灵与肉的矛盾，他时常感到不适。男巫透过七岁孩子的身体观察世界，视角很像作者的另一本书《Fifteen Dogs》。另外，书中还有他一贯的，对家庭关系和道德的探讨，以及以一个非英语母语者视角对英语的凝视甚至鄙视。后者特别矛盾，我能透过角色感受到Alexis本人对英语的复杂心态——一面痛恨它，一面又被英语的美深深折服。
故事里的元素，在他以前的作品中都能找到痕迹：出轨的父亲、隐忍的母亲、知晓一切的神父。Andre Alexis写了许多个故事，但实际上他不断回溯不断重述的只有那一篇，他的人生故事。这是一件很浪漫又很悲伤的事。无论他努力多少遍，构想出何种魔法元素。已经发生的现实都不会被一本小说改变。但或许这是他为了生存作出的努力。而我尊重他的选择。
《Houyhnhnm》则虚构了一个会说话会阅读文学经典的马Xan，而且“Houyhnhnm”这个看起来像乱码的词实际上在词典里是有对应的，意思就是“文学马”。主人公的父亲很爱这匹马，临死前把马托付给主人公，而在生前，父亲更是整日与马形影不离而疏远了主人公和他的母亲——这一设定又是对作者本人童年经历的隐喻和复刻。
但比较令人惊异的是，主人公在父亲死后也跟随了父亲的脚步，和文学马关系亲密。马是他的母亲的替身。本该被他父亲爱着的他母亲，本该被他关心着的母亲：
It was only then that I began to wonder about the exact nature of Mom’s relationship with Xan, that I began to consider the intrusions of Xan into her life, that I had my first inkling of how selfish my grief had made me. And in the days that followed, I found it difficult to speak to her.
在父亲死后，他靠照顾Xan跟父亲保持着灵魂的沟通，可是母亲却一直被父子二人排除在外。这篇文章真正说的是“我”靠近父亲而疏远母亲的故事。
《Consolation》则是被包装成小说的非虚构，实际上就是作者对自己童年经历的完全描述（作者在纽约客访谈中有亲口承认），写得非常好，算是他短篇里我最喜欢的一部。
二、完全异世界：《Winter, or A Town Near Palgrave》，《A Certain Likeness》，《A Misfortune》,《The Bridle Path》，《Pu Songling: An Appreciation》
这几篇的世界观就完全异质化了，不再执着于回溯作者的个人经历，时而奇幻时而恐怖。其中，《A Certain Likeness》和《The Bridle Path》相当出彩，是整本书里情节最精彩且富有深度的两篇。
《Winter, or A Town Near Palgrave》里的主角应邀前往一个小镇，镇上的居民会在12月-3月冬眠，把自己裹入厚厚的茧中熟睡。主角负责照顾他们。故事里沉睡的冬季小镇让我想起他的长篇《Days by Moonlight》。这篇比较平淡无趣。
《A Certain Likeness》是我除了《Consolation》以外最喜欢的一篇，母亲把女儿转化为自己复仇意志的客体，可最终在遇到母亲仇人之后，对方反而帮女儿化解了她身上承载的怨恨诅咒，让她得到了解脱。故事很美，而情节的走向更折射出作者André Alexis本人解读仇恨的方式，如此正直明亮......这正是我喜欢这个作家的理由。
《The Bridle Path》有关权力和伪装，所有肮脏的秘密被利益和人情包裹，摇身一变成了一种美丽的存在。主角怨恨自己出身平民的父亲，可是到头来却发现，自己也在不知不觉中成了他父亲一样，谄媚权贵，曲意逢迎的小人。另外，这篇里还有富人把自己的孩子做成菜食用的设定，这种对现实的精妙讽喻让我感到毛骨悚然，又忍不住叫好。
《A Misfortune》之前在著名的文学期刊格兰塔上发表过，我已经读过一遍了，同样有关家族秘密和被隐瞒的主角，前半部分很精彩，循序渐进，步步为营，可惜结尾戛然而止，感觉故事才进展到1/2处却仓促结束了。
《Pu Songling: An Appreciation》的灵感显然来自《聊斋志异》，是一个巫师和他年轻学徒（白发浅肤色黑人）的故事。不过我完全没看懂。
整本书看完之后，觉得在读到新故事的同时，对作者本人又多了更多的理解。很高兴有机会在正式出版前提前阅读这本小说集！好开心！希望有更多的人能喜欢上这个作家，还希望Alexis本人笔耕不辍，继续创作好看的小说！
附中文书评：【Other Worlds：在异世界找寻故土】https://book.douban.com/review/16616775/
我第一次读André Alexis是他去年刊载在纽约客上的短篇《Consolation》，这个故事深刻震撼了我，它探讨家庭秘密，隐瞒欺骗和极致的爱（妻子对丈夫）与极致的轻视（丈夫对妻子）。读到一半，我忍不住说，这一定是作者本人亲身经历，不然他不可能写得出如此细腻的感受和人物反应。
在后记中Alexis提到，他的大部分作品都是对他儿时体验的复刻，那时他是一个迷茫的孩子，对一切困惑不解，又对发生在家庭和自己身上的不公感到怨恨不满。《Consolation》在我眼里，正是他的核心创作意图的完美体现，更是他积淀多年的成果。从开头的平淡到中部的爆发，Alexis用文字回溯了他始自童年又贯穿一生的噩梦——他父亲如何轻视他的母亲，不爱她却把她绑在身边，自己又不停地出轨。Alexis用文字和故事探索记忆和创伤的黑暗边界，过程中，又透露其正直坦诚的内核，这部短篇深深打动了我，也启发我去阅读他其他的作品。
这本25年新书《Other Worlds》正收录了《Consolation》，此外还有其他一系列主题各异的短篇，共同点是“异世界”，它们都带着奇异的世界观设定——《Contrition》是穿越到七岁男孩身上的七十岁男巫，《Houyhnhnm》里的父亲养了一匹能够阅读阿西莫夫的马，《The Bridle Path》里的主角误入富豪食人族。正如结尾后记所说，Alexis在类型小说中构建异世界，用故事让读者共情儿时最困扰他的两种情绪：迷茫和怨恨，又随着人物一同得到解脱。
下面按照我对这些故事的理解，把它们分为两类再按篇目记录一下阅读感受：
一、Alexis本人的人生故事：《Contrition: An Isekai》，《Houyhnhnm》，《Consolation》
这三篇的设定和叙事都与作者本人的经历十分接近，而《Contrition》和《Consolation》分别被编排在第一篇和最后一篇，形成了一种巧妙的回环。
在《Contrition》里，一个七十岁的老男巫穿越到了七岁孩子的身体里。他有一对深爱他的父母，但，由于灵与肉的矛盾，他时常感到不适。男巫透过七岁孩子的身体观察世界，视角很像作者的另一本书《Fifteen Dogs》。另外，书中还有他一贯的，对家庭关系和道德的探讨，以及以一个非英语母语者视角对英语的凝视甚至鄙视。后者特别矛盾，我能透过角色感受到Alexis本人对英语的复杂心态——一面痛恨它，一面又被英语的美深深折服。
故事里的元素，在他以前的作品中都能找到痕迹：出轨的父亲、隐忍的母亲、知晓一切的神父。Andre Alexis写了许多个故事，但实际上他不断回溯不断重述的只有那一篇，他的人生故事。这是一件很浪漫又很悲伤的事。无论他努力多少遍，构想出何种魔法元素。已经发生的现实都不会被一本小说改变。但或许这是他为了生存作出的努力。而我尊重他的选择。
《Houyhnhnm》则虚构了一个会说话会阅读文学经典的马Xan，而且“Houyhnhnm”这个看起来像乱码的词实际上在词典里是有对应的，意思就是“文学马”。主人公的父亲很爱这匹马，临死前把马托付给主人公，而在生前，父亲更是整日与马形影不离而疏远了主人公和他的母亲——这一设定又是对作者本人童年经历的隐喻和复刻。
但比较令人惊异的是，主人公在父亲死后也跟随了父亲的脚步，和文学马关系亲密。马是他的母亲的替身。本该被他父亲爱着的他母亲，本该被他关心着的母亲：
It was only then that I began to wonder about the exact nature of Mom’s relationship with Xan, that I began to consider the intrusions of Xan into her life, that I had my first inkling of how selfish my grief had made me. And in the days that followed, I found it difficult to speak to her.
在父亲死后，他靠照顾Xan跟父亲保持着灵魂的沟通，可是母亲却一直被父子二人排除在外。这篇文章真正说的是“我”靠近父亲而疏远母亲的故事。
《Consolation》则是被包装成小说的非虚构，实际上就是作者对自己童年经历的完全描述（作者在纽约客访谈中有亲口承认），写得非常好，算是他短篇里我最喜欢的一部。
二、完全异世界：《Winter, or A Town Near Palgrave》，《A Certain Likeness》，《A Misfortune》,《The Bridle Path》，《Pu Songling: An Appreciation》
这几篇的世界观就完全异质化了，不再执着于回溯作者的个人经历，时而奇幻时而恐怖。其中，《A Certain Likeness》和《The Bridle Path》相当出彩，是整本书里情节最精彩且富有深度的两篇。
《Winter, or A Town Near Palgrave》里的主角应邀前往一个小镇，镇上的居民会在12月-3月冬眠，把自己裹入厚厚的茧中熟睡。主角负责照顾他们。故事里沉睡的冬季小镇让我想起他的长篇《Days by Moonlight》。这篇比较平淡无趣。
《A Certain Likeness》是我除了《Consolation》以外最喜欢的一篇，母亲把女儿转化为自己复仇意志的客体，可最终在遇到母亲仇人之后，对方反而帮女儿化解了她身上承载的怨恨诅咒，让她得到了解脱。故事很美，而情节的走向更折射出作者André Alexis本人解读仇恨的方式，如此正直明亮......这正是我喜欢这个作家的理由。
《The Bridle Path》有关权力和伪装，所有肮脏的秘密被利益和人情包裹，摇身一变成了一种美丽的存在。主角怨恨自己出身平民的父亲，可是到头来却发现，自己也在不知不觉中成了他父亲一样，谄媚权贵，曲意逢迎的小人。另外，这篇里还有富人把自己的孩子做成菜食用的设定，这种对现实的精妙讽喻让我感到毛骨悚然，又忍不住叫好。
《A Misfortune》之前在著名的文学期刊格兰塔上发表过，我已经读过一遍了，同样有关家族秘密和被隐瞒的主角，前半部分很精彩，循序渐进，步步为营，可惜结尾戛然而止，感觉故事才进展到1/2处却仓促结束了。
《Pu Songling: An Appreciation》的灵感显然来自《聊斋志异》，是一个巫师和他年轻学徒（白发浅肤色黑人）的故事。不过我完全没看懂。
整本书看完之后，觉得在读到新故事的同时，对作者本人又多了更多的理解。很高兴有机会在正式出版前提前阅读这本小说集！好开心！希望有更多的人能喜欢上这个作家，还希望Alexis本人笔耕不辍，继续创作好看的小说！
July 9, 2025
Whoa. This is the best collection I've read in a very, very, very long time. Amazing range and dexterity and restraint even amid the extremes. I have been waiting ever since I heard Alexis read the astonishing "Houyhnhnm": https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
(please listen to this ASAP! What a great reader, too)
and there are tales I'll return to many times in this life. "Winter, or A Town Near Palgrave" is exceptional. The longer stories are captivating. "Consolation" could be an Alice Munro story, and "Elegy" sums it all up . . .
Most of the windows were shuttered or curtained, but one was not. And through it I saw a man and a woman, naked in the middle of what looked to be a living room.
The sight was not appealing, and I would have turned away, but I was struck by what they were doing. The man, corpulent and awkward, looking like a monstrously oversized baby, was climbing a ladder, a bale of thick rope around his forearm. Unfurling the rope, he threw the bulk of it over a beam and, coming down, gave his wife the other end, before climbing up again with another bale of rope.
How quickly one falls into other lives!
(from "Winter, or A Town Near Palgrave")
(please listen to this ASAP! What a great reader, too)
and there are tales I'll return to many times in this life. "Winter, or A Town Near Palgrave" is exceptional. The longer stories are captivating. "Consolation" could be an Alice Munro story, and "Elegy" sums it all up . . .
Most of the windows were shuttered or curtained, but one was not. And through it I saw a man and a woman, naked in the middle of what looked to be a living room.
The sight was not appealing, and I would have turned away, but I was struck by what they were doing. The man, corpulent and awkward, looking like a monstrously oversized baby, was climbing a ladder, a bale of thick rope around his forearm. Unfurling the rope, he threw the bulk of it over a beam and, coming down, gave his wife the other end, before climbing up again with another bale of rope.
How quickly one falls into other lives!
(from "Winter, or A Town Near Palgrave")
November 1, 2025
In an interview with Toronto Life, André Alexis said that the stories in this collection were written “under the sword of Damocles, which was the death of my father in 2019 and the progressive loss of my mother from dementia. They’re all elegies for the parental—what it means, how strange it is and how strong that love is.”
Those themes certainly come across clearly through these stories, but there are so many other layers to each story that it would be reductive to just say that this is a collection of stories about the nature of parenthood, or the complexities of parent-child relationships (even though that’s a true statement). This is one of those collections from which different readers will pull different meanings, at different times.
As with most short story collections, some of the stories are stronger than others; Houyhnhnm is a standout for me, as a surprisingly nuanced meditation on grief in the form of a story about a talking horse, which perhaps provides a bit of an idea of the sort of strangeness that pervades most of the stories. In fact, I’d say the weakest stories in the collection, for me, were the ones that didn’t have a fantastical element in them.
These are deceptively simple stories with a great deal of emotional depth, and you’ll likely still be thinking about them days after reading them.
Those themes certainly come across clearly through these stories, but there are so many other layers to each story that it would be reductive to just say that this is a collection of stories about the nature of parenthood, or the complexities of parent-child relationships (even though that’s a true statement). This is one of those collections from which different readers will pull different meanings, at different times.
As with most short story collections, some of the stories are stronger than others; Houyhnhnm is a standout for me, as a surprisingly nuanced meditation on grief in the form of a story about a talking horse, which perhaps provides a bit of an idea of the sort of strangeness that pervades most of the stories. In fact, I’d say the weakest stories in the collection, for me, were the ones that didn’t have a fantastical element in them.
These are deceptively simple stories with a great deal of emotional depth, and you’ll likely still be thinking about them days after reading them.
July 30, 2025
Imagine stepping into a book where every story feels like a dream you almost remember—strange, magical, and a little spooky. Other Worlds by André Alexis is a collection of nine short stories that take you to places that feel familiar but are filled with weird surprises. One story has a man who dies in Trinidad and wakes up 100 years later as a Canadian kid. Another has a town where people hibernate in giant sacks during winter. There’s even a tale about a woman who starts dating the artist who painted her mom. Each story mixes real life with fantasy, making you wonder what’s possible and what’s just plain bizarre.
Alexis doesn’t just tell cool stories—he makes you think. His characters are often confused, curious, or trying to figure out something big about themselves or the world. He uses different styles, like horror and even anime-inspired plots (like isekai), and references famous writers from the past. But the best part? He writes in a way that’s funny, deep, and sometimes a little sad, all at once. If you like stories that feel like puzzles or that make you go “wait, what just happened?”, this book is like a treasure chest of strange, thoughtful adventures.
Thank you to NetGalley and FSG Originals for this ARC!
Alexis doesn’t just tell cool stories—he makes you think. His characters are often confused, curious, or trying to figure out something big about themselves or the world. He uses different styles, like horror and even anime-inspired plots (like isekai), and references famous writers from the past. But the best part? He writes in a way that’s funny, deep, and sometimes a little sad, all at once. If you like stories that feel like puzzles or that make you go “wait, what just happened?”, this book is like a treasure chest of strange, thoughtful adventures.
Thank you to NetGalley and FSG Originals for this ARC!
October 31, 2025
Reading short stories is a very different experience than a novel. Cause usually when I find a good book I can't stop reading it until it's done, it's the only thing I can think about while I'm in the story. But this book I had to pick up and put down after each story cause I'd be uninterested in the next until I read a few pages. But that doesn't mean this wasn't a good book, it was pretty good tbh. My favorite was the first story, it made me think about people who were indigenous to their respective lands, and their perspective on Colonizers. How different it could've been if each lands people were left to it's own devices. And each story had it's own interesting device, the one with the people who hibernated all winter felt freaky, but also comforting at the same time? Towards the end it felt more introspective, less flashy storylines, more about the human condition. Which I enjoyed as well, it honestly felt like the author was writing diary entries, using these stories to flesh out thinking about aspects in his own life. I was a bit confused when many of the themes were reaccuring, it was hard to separate each story from another. But by the end I weirdly felt like I had a little understanding of the author as a person.
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