The Dominant Animal: Stories

Named a Best Book of 2020 by The Guardian, Southwest Review, and Publishers Weekly

The stories] are short, but their mood and imagery are lasting, and reflective of brutal truths of the commerce of human civilization . . . chilling, finely tuned pieces on power and survival. --Los Angeles Times

A collection of innovative and ambitious short stories from a visionary young literary artist

In The Dominant Animal--Kathryn Scanlan's adventurous, unsettling debut collection--compression is key. Sentences have been relentlessly trimmed, tuned, and teased for maximum impact, and a ferocious attention to rhythm and sound results in a palpable pulse of excitability and distress. The nature of love is questioned at a golf course, a flower shop, an all-you-can-eat buffet. The clay head of a man is bought and displayed as a trophy. Interior life manifests on the physical plane, where characters--human and animal--eat and breathe, provoke and injure one another.

With exquisite control, Scanlan moves from expansive moods and fine afternoons to unease and violence--and also from deliberate and generative ambiguity to shocking, revelatory exactitude. Disturbances accrue as the collection progresses. How often the conclusions open--rather than tie--up. How they twist alertly. No mercy, a character says--and these stories are merciless and strange and absolutely masterful.

Publisher: MCD X Fsg Originals
Published: 04/07/2020
Pages: 160
Weight: 0.25lbs
Size: 7.40h x 5.00w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9780374538293


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 11/11/2019
Kirkus Reviews 02/01/2020

About the Author
Kathryn Scanlan is the author of Aug 9--Fog. Her work has been published in NOON, Fence, Granta, and The Paris Review. She lives in Los Angeles.