Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories

by GennaRose Nethercott

Overview

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK • From the author of the breakout novel Thistlefoot: a collection of dark fairytales and fractured folklore exploring how our passions can save us—or go monstrously wrong.

“Real magic, real delight, doled out generously in the shape of wistful, ferocious, this-world-but-better stories.”—Kelly Link, author of White Cat, Black Dog

The stories in Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart are about the abomination that resides within us all. That churning, clawing, ravenous yearning: the hunger to be held, and seen, and known. And the terror, too: to be loved too well, or not enough, or for long enough. To be laid bare before your sweetheart, to their horror. To be recognized as the monstrous thing you are.

Two teenage girls working at a sinister roadside attraction called the Eternal Staircase explore its secrets—and their own doomed summer love. A zombie rooster plays detective in a missing persons case. A woman moves into a new house with her acclaimed artist boyfriend—and finds her body slowly shifting into something specially constructed to accommodate his needs and whims. A pack of middle schoolers turn to the occult to rid themselves of a hated new classmate. And a pair of outcasts, a vampire and a goat woman, find solace in each other, even as the world's lack of understanding might bring about its own end.

In these lush, strange, beautifully written stories, GennaRose Nethercott explores human longing in all its diamond-dark facets to create a collection that will redefine what you see as a beast, and make you beg to have your heart broken.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593314197
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/06/2024
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	84,336
File size:	33 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

GENNAROSE NETHERCOTT is the author of a novel, Thistlefoot, and a book-length poem, The Lumberjack’s Dove, which was selected by Louise Glück as a winner of the National Poetry Series. She tours nationally and internationally performing strange tales (sometimes with puppets in tow) and helps create the podcast Lore. She lives in the woodlands of Vermont, beside an old cemetery.

Editorial Reviews

11/13/2023

Nethercott (Thistlefoot) collects 14 delectable dark fairy tales which tend to start in worlds that feel almost comfortable—until the shadows thicken and all at once everything has teeth. Some of the beastly creatures featured here are literal monsters, as in the title tale, which is presented as a bestiary (with splendid illustrations by Bobby DiTrani) assembled by three florists who create strange bouquets of creatures. Others are much more human, like the sixth graders in “A Diviner’s Abecedarian.” Girls playing fortune-telling games in the schoolyard and during sleepovers is a familiar motif—but what if they could tell exactly how the new girl in class would die? Nethercott’s supremely confident prose assists—and indeed demands—the suspension of disbelief; of course a woman can become a house, if she wishes (“Homebody”). Naturally, water might leap from lakes and bottles and clouds to drown a girl where she stands (“Drowning Lessons”). And why shouldn’t a reality-bending, mind-shattering staircase also be a slightly tacky local tourist attraction (“Sundown at the Eternal Staircase”)? That’s simply how the world is. By the end of this grimly fantastic collection, readers will have bought in entirely. Agent: Paul Lucas, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

MOST ANTICIPATED: GOOD HOUSEKEEPING • LITERARY HUB • BOOK RIOT • GIZMODO • WBUR

“Real magic, real delight, doled out generously in the shape of wistful, ferocious, this-world-but-better stories.”
—Kelly Link, author of White Cat, Black Dog

“Nethercott is writing with old world style, but creating her own new world order. . . . If you love the richly magical work of Kelly Link, the uncategorizable tales of Helen Oyeyemi, stories by Aimee Bender, Neil Gaiman, Karen Russell—you will likely find much to enjoy here. . . . Nethercott writes briskly but vividly, lingering over her creations but sometimes slipping by the horrors so quickly that they take a moment to register. (They always do catch up.) . . . There’s a playfulness to Nethercott’s style, and especially in her wide use of forms: a venomous letter, a slippery transcribed memoir, a transformative bestiary, a calendar, a dictionary. . . . [These] tales . . . are restless, playful, wise, heartbroken and rich.”
—Molly Templeton, Reactor

“[Nethercott is] a multifaceted master storyteller.”
—Elisa Shoenberger, Chicago Review of Books

“Fans of Karen Russell will love these bizarre, absurdist stories that feel like twisted versions of the fairytales that dance around the edges of nightmares, and might just worm their way into yours.”
—Lizz Schumer, Good Housekeeping, “12 Most-Anticipated Books Coming Out in 2024”

“All of you who love that strain of witty, wistful, enigmatic stories that runs from Kafka to Kelly Link: come read this book. GennaRose Nethercott draws from a magic well, bringing us tales that feel as old as time yet marvelously new.”
—Sofia Samatar, author of Tender and Monster Portraits

"By blending humor, horror, and the fantastical with history and the here and now, GennaRose Nethercott’s Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart induces feelings of love, loneliness, wonderment, fury, and fear. Pure fuel for the imagination, the magic on these pages offers comfort from stories that aren’t always comfortable but which are full of truths and so much beauty."
—Nick Medina, author of Sisters of the Lost Nation

"GennaRose Nethercott's imagination is boundless, her writing emerging from a rich personal folklore of which Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart suggests only the edge. Everything in this book is alive and ready to love you or to wound you."
—Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Ghost Variations

“Nethercott’s writing takes on the tone of timeless folklore, from fairy tales to urban legends to ghost stories. But what makes these stories read as true and familiar isn’t a trick of syntax. Instead, it’s Nethercott’s insightful exploration of the universal themes that classic stories are meant to capture. . . . [These themes] are all explored here with great sensitivity and almost always a surprising twist. . . . [Nethercott] has a great talent for taking personal pains and making them universal. A memorable story collection that makes the supernatural personal.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Nethercott’s . . . prose is transfixing and poetic. . . . Recommend this to readers who enjoy cerebral and unsettling fairy tales.”
—Biz Hyzy, Booklist

“Nethercott continues to build on the successes of her magical debut Thistlefoot with a collection of strange and fantastical tales that bring to mind Neil Gaiman and Kelly Link. Filled with folklore, Americana, and an infectious imagination, every single story is a knockout—but the gorgeously illustrated titular bestiary is a highlight.”
—Literary Hub, “Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2024”

“Beautiful folkloric short stories. . . . The best part is that these mystical characters are a reflection of us—there’s a monstrous, ravenous spirit within us all.”
—Christian Burno, WBUR, “7 Highly Anticipated Books to Read This Winter”

“Delectable dark fairy tales which tend to start in worlds that feel almost comfortable—until the shadows thicken and all at once everything has teeth. . . . Nethercott’s supremely confident prose assists—and indeed demands—the suspension of disbelief. . . . Fantastic.”
—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

★ 12/01/2023

In this collection, each whimsical yet unsettling tale drags readers into a painful memory. It may be unrequited love, a best friend's betrayal, a lost dream, a callous ex, or simply moving away or growing up, but each story touches on a different universal hurt. And yet, it is a pleasant sort of sorrow, like listening to favorite sad songs and knowing that someone understands and has felt this before. Each story contains a folkloric beauty that somehow feels more solid because of the fantasy elements. Nethercott (Thistlefoot) seems to love playing with language and structure. One story is a bestiary—with illustrations—and another is composed of dictionary entries, but both tuck intriguing narratives inside the format. There's also a calendar and a letter and a handful of fairy tales. Interspersed between these are dream fragments of teeth and foxes and thread. The language may feel too strange for some readers, yet it will likely make them ache wistfully all the same. VERDICT Sometimes a bit Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge, sometimes When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill, but consistently reminiscent of the lush language of Patricia A. McKillip.—Matthew Galloway

Library Journal

The author is joined by an ensemble of four narrators to deliver this collection of 14 short stories. The works are a bit bizarre, but all share the theme of human longing. January LaVoy conveys poignancy in a story about a vampire and a goat woman who find solace in friendship. Gabra Zackman is able to make a woman who transforms into a house to better serve her boyfriend's wants sound ordinary. Max Myers is frantic to protect his sister, who drowns over and over again. Elena Rey explores summer love in the setting of a sinister roadside tourist attraction. The author portrays sixth-grade girls who seek to use the occult to harm a new classmate. J.E.M. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

MAY 2024 - AudioFile

★ 2023-11-04
Folklorist Nethercott’s collection of original spooky stories is hauntingly familiar.

Workers at a sinister tourist trap become trapped in their own patterns in “Sundown at the Eternal Staircase.” In “A Diviner’s Abecedarian,” a tight-knit group of girls has a sinister way of welcoming new friends. A boy tries to protect his older sister from near-constant drowning in “Drowning Lessons.” In the title story, a group of florists include details of their doomed romances alongside descriptions of mythical creatures. Women lose themselves, sometimes by becoming a house (“Homebody”) and sometimes by becoming a ghost of themselves (“A Lily Is a Lily”), all for men who would happily reduce them to nothing. Nethercott’s writing takes on the tone of timeless folklore, from fairy tales to urban legends to ghost stories. But what makes these stories read as true and familiar isn’t a trick of syntax. Instead, it’s Nethercott’s insightful exploration of the universal themes that classic stories are meant to capture. Teenage (and adult) heartbreak, class anxiety, societal cruelty against those who are different, and the everyday losses of women trying desperately to conform to patriarchal standards are all explored here with great sensitivity and almost always a surprising twist. Nethercott winkingly thanks her exes in the acknowledgments, saying, “If you think it’s about you, it probably is,” but luckily for readers, she has a great talent for taking personal pains and making them universal.

A memorable story collection that makes the supernatural personal.

Kirkus Reviews