magic
for beginners:
stories
kelly link
Best of the Year Lists:
- "Link's
stories ... play in a place few writers go, a netherworld between
literature and fantasy, Alice Munro and J.K. Rowling, and Link finds
truths there that most authors wouldn't dare touch."
-- Time
Magazine
- "Link's writing shimmers
with imagination."
-- Salon
- "A mind-bending blast,
as funny, disturbing and poignant as anything I've read this year."
-- Capitol
Times
- "The storyteller's mantra
-- "It gets better" -- come to life and multiplied."
-- Village
Voice
- "Link's powerful prose places
this collection into a class of its own."
-- Boldtype
(2005 Notable Books)
- San Francisco Chronicle.
Story
Prize recommended reading list.
Reviews | UK reviews
"One of current fiction's
little-known treasures."
-- Time
Magazine
"Dazzling.... One to savor."
-- Entertainment Weekly (A, Editor's Choice)
"Eerie and engrossing."
-- Washington
Post Book World
"Kelly Link is the future
of American short fiction."
-- Alexis Smith, Powells.com
Staff Pick
"Fierce and witty."
-- Cleveland
Plain Dealer
"These stories shimmer like
impressionist paintings."
-- Montreal
Gazette
"Kelly Link is the best short-fiction
writer working in science fiction and fantasy today, and her new collection,
Magic for Beginners, proves it."
-- Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing.net
"Link's stories are delightfully
playful, almost precocious, as she creates palimpsests of secret passages,
hidden doors, quiet pulses of deeper meaning.... Link is fast becoming
a major talent."
-- Boston
Globe
"Fresh and unaffected, yet honed
to the essential."
-- Salon
"Advanced alchemy."
-- The Believer
"Sinister and sublime."
-- Boston
Phoenix
"Exuberantly eccentric."
-- Time Out New York
"Link's powerful prose places
this collection into a class of its own."
-- Boldtype
"Spellbinding."
-- Time Out Chicago
"Kelly Link writes from way
out in left field."
-- Charlotte
Observer
"A complete delight."
-- Rich Horton, Locus
"These tales are every bit
as remarkable as those in her first collection."
-- Gary K. Wolfe, Locus
* "Not only does Link find
fresh perspectives from which to explore familiar premises, she also
forges ingenious connections between disparate images and narrative
approaches to suggest a convincing alternate logic that shapes the
worlds of her highly original fantasies."
-- Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
"Cult-favorite fabulist and
Shirley Jackson-esque master of the short story, returns with an eagerly-awaited
new collection of thoughtfully strange tales that sprinkle the mundane
with pixie dust, a dash of old-fashioned tragedy and a bit of gallows
humor."
-- The Ruminator Review
"Truly magical, with masterfully
crafted stories that are as dark as they are delightful....Sometimes
hilarious, sometimes disconcerting, Link's stories demonstrate her
wicked sense of humor and genius wit."
-- Bookpage
"KELLY LINK has an uncanny
knack for casting spells over her readers, for luring them into the
dark places -- the attic, the underworld, a realm beneath a hill.
Her first collection of short stories, Stranger Things Happen,
was published by Small Beer Press, a tiny independent publisher
in Northampton founded by Link and Gavin J. Grant that, according
to its Web site, is "committed to publishing short story collections
and novels by authors we feel are slipping through the cracks." These
stories bend and transcend genre as Link stirs together myth, mystery,
horror, and fantasy. Her second collection, Magic for Beginners (Small
Beer Press, 272 pages, $24), is due out in July and promises the same
mix of the sinister and the surreal. But the stories -- more suggestive
than they are descriptive -- shouldn't be pigeonholed as only for
sci-fi and fantasy fans. Because for all Link's use of fairy tale
and phantasm, she roots her stories in the life that we know.
"The narrator in "The Faery Handbag," for example,
tells the story of her grandmother's magic bag -- a bag so black it
feels like "when you stretch out your hand at night, to turn on a
light, but all you feel is darkness" -- which if opened correctly
leads to a secret realm, and if opened incorrectly leads to a howling,
hairless Cerberus-like dog. The story begins in the Garment District,
in Kendall Square; there's a sly reference to the Star Wars prequels;
and, beyond the handbag, it's a story of young lost love. Fairy tales
and myths may be timeless, but these stories are of this moment."
--Nina MacLaughlin, Boston
Phoenix
"Link is the purest, most
distinctive surrealist in America."
-- Booklist
"These nine stories are the kinds
of stories for which literary phrases like "surrealism" and "magical
realism" were invented, and I guess they'll do, although they seem
pretty stale and pale in the face of Link's boundlessly creative prose.
Let's just say that nobody mixes the fantastical and the ordinary
together quite like Link does, spinning tales that are both funny
and disturbing, straightforward and elliptical, unreal and real."
-- The
Capital Times
"One of the most fascinating
writers practicing the craft today."
-- The
Simon
"Wishful thinking on the
brink of disaster."
-- Village
Voice
"Magical realism meets horror
meets postmodern absurdism. Very fresh and funny."
-- Michael Knight, Knoxville
Metro Pulse Summer Reading Guide
"A bizarre and enchanting
read, worth reading and re-reading."
-- Daily
Nebraskan
"A wonderful rattlebag of
fantastic tales from far beyond the concrete sidewalks and convenience
stores we know. Like her first collection, Magic for Beginners
uses humor as the main prism through which the author views her mostly
hapless or at least happy-go-lucky characters. The strange attraction
of Link's fiction is that even when you're not really sure what's
going on you're having way too much fun reading to stop and rereading
these tall tales is a positive pleasure."
-- Rich Rennicks Malaprop's Bookstore/Cafe, Asheville, NC
"The stories in Magic
for Beginners make their own strange, perfectly formed sense.
Link creates these familiar, spooky, sometimes funny worlds with cats
parented by witches, or a cheerleader hanging out with the devil,
or creepifying rabbits. I'm always a little tense reading these stories.
In the very best way, I never know what is coming next. If she only
parcelled out one elegant sentence at a time I would beg for each
one."
-- Pam Harcourt, Women & Children First, Chicago, IL
"I am in love with Kelly
Link's new collection of stories, Magic For Beginners, just
out in hardcover. This book is a fairly complete list of my favorite
things. She sort of summarized it best when she signed it for me:
"Love, Magic, Zombies!" It's fantastical, whimsical, and
dead serious and it makes me interested in short stories again."
-- Alexander Chee, author Edinburgh, in Books To Watch Out
For
Tiger
Heron
UK reviews
"This is one of the most
extraordinary and wonderful books of the year."
—Time Out London, Mar. 27, 07
"Possibly grimmer than Grimm."
—The Herald, Feb 2, 07
"Beautifully written short
stories; eccentric and dark, the collection is an Alice in Wonderland
for grown-ups."
—Dazed and Confused
"Link's writing is bold,
tender, mischievous and unsettling."
—Cork Evening Echo, Feb 17, 07
"These are weird and wacky
tales, each with their own barmy internal logic which draws you in,
flips you on your head and leaves you dizzy with disbelief.... Link's
extraordinary use of language is as haunting as the tales themselves.
She blends fantasy and reality into an irresistible melange that,
at its best, becomes a powerful metaphor for the unreliability of
perception."
—Jane Wessel, Venue (****)
"Link's magic is to show
the extraordinary in the ordinary and vice versa: no mean feat."
—RTE Guide (*****)
"Just when you think you've
read all the best magic and fantasy stories, along comes Link and
the dull world is enchanted all over again. Her imagination floats
free into her very own twilight zone."
—Saga, Mar 07
"Whether she's writing about
a suburban family haunted by rabbits or a grandmother who keeps a
world hidden in her handbag, Link's stories are witty, moving and
sometimes scary."
—The Gloss Magazine, Feb 07
"A collection of nine stories
from a talent to watch, this is a lyrical fantasy where the ordinary
is made extraordinary."
—The Bookseller, Oct 06