Recipes for Endangered Species

by Traci O. Connor

Fiction. A dying lover plans to become a zombie. An anxious woman can't decide if she's animal or human. A Jesus the size of a pencil lurks beneath the bed. Monsters, monsters, everywhere. But are they real or imagined? The stories in RECIPES FOR ENDANGERED SPECIES hinge on this uncertainty. Lyrical, darkly funny, sometimes disturbing, this collection explores the secret desires that render people not only imperfect and dangerous, but also authentically human. Such ambiguity lies at the heart of Traci O Connor's RECIPES FOR ENDANGERED SPECIES, resulting in strangely beautiful stories obsessed with the unreasonable, the monstrous, and the extraordinary living among--and within--us.

Genres: Short Stories

208 pages, Paperback

First published May 28, 2010

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm working on putting together a fuller review of this, so think of this as more of like a place-=holder. This is a really good book, and occasionally really challenging because O Connor (is that what I'm supposed to call Traci?) does really interesting things with the frames on her stories-- mostly, they are unspoken and fluid, like handi-cams, and you don't know what belongs in the frame till the story is finished, and even then, it's often sort of disruptive.... The sentences are beautiful even when they are cruel, and the stories are about people you lived in the same apartment complex with when you first graduated college, but this books takes them more seriously than you ever did.

I think this will be a really handsome book, but the galley I got was printed on the cheap, so it's hard to say for sure.

Keep your eyes peeled for a better, or at least more substantive review, in someplace more legit in a couple months.