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Love, parenthood, friendship -- works of fiction often celebrate the near-sacred connections that bind people together. But what about the times when these ties become tenuous and warped, or crumble away completely? What if your child is a furry feral creature, your new love interest a potential serial killer (or worse, a fictitious cliche), or your co-workers so jaded and dry they can barely speak above a whisper? What happens when your baby never smiles or your head and body have decided to go their separate ways? In "The Odious Child", her first collection of short stories, Carolyn Black conceives of multiple situations, both believable and fantastic, in which adeptly written characters attempt to channel their powerful, desperate yearning for fulfillment within the intricate labyrinths of social interaction. With a refreshingly clear style and brilliantly subtle wit, Black manages to imaginatively portray the essence of frustration and loneliness without losing perspective or succumbing to despair.
In accordance with this pragmatic approach, her stories never end with an artificially tidy sense of resolution -- instead, she chooses to open her characters' lives to the possibility of further expansion.
Love, parenthood, friendship -- works of fiction often celebrate the near-sacred connections that bind people together. But what about the times when these ties become tenuous and warped, or crumble away completely? What if your child is a furry feral creature, your new love interest a potential serial killer (or worse, a fictitious cliche), or your co-workers so jaded and dry they can barely speak above a whisper? What happens when your baby never smiles or your head and body have decided to go their separate ways? In "The Odious Child", her first collection of short stories, Carolyn Black conceives of multiple situations, both believable and fantastic, in which adeptly written characters attempt to channel their powerful, desperate yearning for fulfillment within the intricate labyrinths of social interaction. With a refreshingly clear style and brilliantly subtle wit, Black manages to imaginatively portray the essence of frustration and loneliness without losing perspective or succumbing to despair.
In accordance with this pragmatic approach, her stories never end with an artificially tidy sense of resolution -- instead, she chooses to open her characters' lives to the possibility of further expansion.
Carolyn Black's stories have appeared in literary journals across Canada. "Serial Love" was published in the prestigious Journey Prize anthology, and "At World's End, Falling Off" won Honourable Mention at the National Magazine Awards. She received an M.A. in English from the University of Toronto, where she now works, converting early modern manuscripts into books, and converting these books into encoded data for the web. She lives in Toronto when not inhabiting the spaces between then, now and soon.
[I]t's been awhile since I've read a book that's made me curious
enough to go search the author out for some illumination. Carolyn
Black's first book is one of the strongest debuts I've ever
encountered. ... She writes like no one else I've ever read, like a
writer who's standing on the shoulders of nobody, her stories' own
foundations are so very solid.
--Kerry Clare, Pickle Me This
The Odious Child is very different from other short fiction
collections I've read this year. It is more revealing than most,
but not in ways you'd expect. Carolyn Black has offered up a slate
of diverse dysfunctions in need of a strong, reprimanding hand--one
she is more than willing to provide. In doing so, she has also
given us one of the most open and naked collections of short
fiction I've read in some time.
--Andrew Wilmot, Backlisted Blog
The Odious Child is an alluring portrait of the magic of the mind
to twist and tense under the conditioning of a fractured city.
Black's work here evinces the kind of spirited control that gets my
gears turning, and her ability to zero in on details, the myriad
tiny fragments of thought and life, ensure that in me she has
enchanted a perpetually devoted reader.
--E. M. Keeler, Bookside Table Blog
There is pure genius present here, I promise you. Carolyn's prose
is impeccable, her word choice fitting, her stories strong and
orderly and beautifully spare. It's such a fantastic thing, writing
that is both efficient yet so very rich!
--Bella's Bookshelf Blog
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