And the Brotherhood of Paradise turns out to be a secret society that is deadly serious about keeping its secrets.īut They’ll Love It Because: The literary world needs more portrayals of sensitive, artistic men who aren’t afraid to get in touch with their emotions and pursue their dreams, even if those dreams include sorcery, teleportation, and carnivorous plants. It’s So Romantic, Except: Those imaginary plant-animal sculptures and otherworldly landscapes? They’re not imaginary. With Daisy, he wants nothing more than “to show her this resplendent world in full bloom and have her behold it with ensorcelled delight.” It’s the stuff romcoms are made of … until it’s not. The unnamed narrator is socially awkward yet sensitive, a romantic soul searching for “a girl of special imagination”-a companion with whom he can share his love of the natural world, and the quirky arcana he studies as part of a philosophical society called “The Brotherhood of Paradise.” He’s an artist, too: by day he illustrates ads for a commercial agency by night he sculpts imaginary plant-animal hybrids and paints otherworldly landscapes. The Pitch: For readers unacquainted with the work of Thomas Ligotti, this story about a man who meets his beloved, Daisy, at a florist shop might, on the face of it, seem better suited to a pro-Valentine’s Day list. Mark Springer recommends “Les Fleurs” by Thomas Ligotti Price: $15 from Indiebound you don’t really want to buy this one from Amazon, now, do you? But it’s impossible not to talk about this collection. Readers, especially those who share Adjei-Brenyah’s deep outrage over racist killings, may bounce hard off of the violence, or find certain entries fall quite flat. Adjei-Brenyah pulls off some rare moments of grace within the lunacy. It’s So Romantic, Except: The graphic violence our teenage heroine Knife Queen Ama wreaks in “Through the Flash” is hard to read, but not nearly as disturbing as Adjei-Brenyah’s dark fable of racism-for-profit in “Zimmer Land,” about a theme park where customers can act out vigilante fantasies on black and other minority actors.īut They’ll Love It Because: American racism and consumerism are ripe, timely targets for a George-Saunders-style absurdism, in which knowledge of the system’s obvious madness and cruelty brings its human participants no closer to extracting themselves. The same giddy despair colors the collection’s other stories, but the highlight is “Through the Flash,” a time loop story darker and far bloodier than Groundhog Day or Russian Doll, one that truly touches the nihilism and insanity of humans facing eternity. The Pitch: In the title story of Adjei-Brenyah’s buzzy debut collection, Black Friday shoppers are so overtaken by consumer frenzy they devolve into gibbering zombies and only one retail clerk knows how to both close a sale and keep all ten fingers. But really, it’s the bloody drinking problem. ![]() Second: there’s no “death do us part” option behind door number three. ![]() It’s So Romantic, Except: This story points out why a vampire will never triumph on The Bachlorette. Clyde has settled into life in the lemon grove watching the cruise-ship tourists drink lemonade and ride the funicular up the cliffs when Magreb tells him the lemons are no longer working. ![]() Magreb has disabused Clyde of every vampire myth he’d been living by-he has a reflection and a heartbeat, and the blood he’s been drinking “does nothing.” He loves her and so gives up blood-sucking and his other vampire ways but for both of them, the blood-lust continues to lurk like a “comfortable despair.” Searching for vegetarian options, they discover lemons temporarily numb their thirst. The Pitch: In this title story of the collection, Clyde and his wife of 30 years, Magreb, both vampires, meet every night to eat lemons in a grove on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea. CH Lips proposes “Vampires in the Lemon Grove” by Karen Russell
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