Her body among animals : stories

Her body among animals Stories

Paola Ferrante

Book - 2023

"In this genre-bending debut collection merging horror, fairy tales, pop culture and sci-fi, women challenge the boundaries placed on their bodies while living in a world "among animals," where violence is intertwined with bizarre ecological disruptions. A sentient sex robot goes against her programming; a grad student living with depression is weighed down by an ever-present albatross; an unhappy wife turns into a spider; a boy with a dark secret is haunted by dolls; a couple bound for a colony on Mars take a road trip through Texas; a girl fights to save her sister from growing a mermaid tail like their absent mother. Magical yet human, haunted and haunting, these stories act as a surreal documentation of the mistakes in sy...stems of the past that remain very much in the present. Ferrante investigates toxic masculinity and the devastation it enacts upon women and our planet, delving into the universal undercurrent of ecological anxiety in the face of such toxicity, and the personal experience of being a new mother concerned about the future her child will face. Through these confrontations of the complexity of living in a woman's body, Her Body Among Animals moves us from hopelessness to a future of resilience and possibility." --

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Subjects
Women > Fiction.
Women > Violence against > Fiction.
Women.
Women > Violence against.
Short stories.
Fairy tales.
Fantasy fiction.
Fiction.
Horror fiction.
Science fiction.
Genres
Short stories
Fairy tales
Fantasy fiction
Fiction
Horror fiction
Science fiction
Published
Toronto : Book*hug Press 2023.
Language
English
Main Author
Paola Ferrante (author)
Edition
First edition
Item Description
Subtitle from cover.
Physical Description
260 pages ; 21 cm
ISBN
9781771668385
  • When foxes die electric
  • The underside of a wing
  • Mermaid girls
  • Finding Houdini
  • A trick of the dark
  • Everyday horror show
  • Pandora
  • Cobwebs
  • The silent grave of birds
  • So what if it's supposed to rain
  • Amonge chameleons and other shades.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

The 11 stories in Ferrante's decadent and haunting fiction debut (after the poetry collection What to Wear When Surviving a Lion Attack) all hinge on women attempting to establish boundaries in a world that constantly pushes against their minds and bodies. In "When Foxes Die Electric," a sex robot named Harmony is programmed to feel but not to think, particularly about the monstrous behavior of one of her creators. "The Underside of a Wing" explores trauma, Hitchcock, and mental illness as it follows an alcoholic graduate student who is visited by a spectral albatross. In "Everyday Horror Show," a horror filmmaker grapples with isolation and psychosis as she faces the difficulties of motherhood. "Cobwebs" chronicles the fallout of an unfulfilled wife's decision to break free of her constricted life by transforming into a spider. The heroine of "A Trick of the Dark" contends with a husband who intermittently turns into a dragon and has no qualms about hurting her. The tone throughout is hypnotic and visceral, weaving the richness of poetry with the economy of genre prose. There is no filler here; each story is devastating, brilliantly imaginative, and almost impossible to summarize neatly. Ferrante is a vital new voice in short fiction. (Sept.)

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