Let me tell you why Kelly Link is my new mortal enemy: her masterful writing has broken and violated my brain in the best possible way. I would have never stayed focused on finishing one of her moody, speculative short stories had I not been recommended White Cat, Black Dog. Each of the eight pieces is based on international folklore reimagined in current and make-believe places that grow to become more familiar than reality the more askew the narrative twists. At the start of the first two longer-than-short-story stories in the collection, I was nervous about her lop-sided and surrealistic worlds, but by the time I reached the final pages of those yarns, I was emotional, eager, and inspired.
Despite what you may initially think going down the rabbit hole, Kelly Link is committed to the magic of story. Though she may appear to wander down meandering abysses that stretch your imagination as far as our adult brains can stretch, weed-harvesting cats that eat rabbits and talk, you’re rewarded when the final sentence draws to a close. She doesn’t do hooky as a gimmick. She builds intricate labyrinths in more than just the setting but in the flow of every sentence. The worlds she has built make sense only in some twisted grown-up fairy tale, but the characters are so complex that you can’t set the book down for too long. I would love to find a tiny closet in a wall that would allow me to crawl into Kelly Link’s mind for 15 minutes. Every story goes from being a nightmare to a dream to a reality in an honest and seamless way. You will feel rewarded for reading this book.
What does a story from White Cat, Black Dog feel like?
I felt like Sir Anthony Hopkins was reading me a fairy tale translated by David Lynch, illustrated by Wes Andersen, and published by Studio A24. Yeah, all of that combined feels close to something that feels like the writing of Kelly Link.
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