Crítics Matiners

Reading John Crowley’s stories is to see almost-familiar lives running parallel to our own, secret histories that never quite happened, memories that might be real or might be invented. In the thirteen stories collected here, Crowley sets his imagination free to roam from a 20th century Shakespeare festival to spring break at a future Yale in his Edgar Award winning story “Spring Break”. And in the previously unpublished “Anosognosia” the world brought about by one John C.’s high-school accident may or may not exist. Table of Contents — not final order And Go Like ThisAnosognosiaConversation HeartsFlint and MirrorThe Girlhood of Shakespeare's HeroinesThe Million Monkeys of M. BorelSpring BreakThis Is Our TownThree TalesLittle Yeses, Little NosGlow Little Glow-WormMount Auburn StreetTom Mix Praise for John Crowley’s fiction: “Ka, is a beautiful, often dreamlike late masterpiece. Elegiacal and exhilarating, Ka is both consoling and unflinching in its examination of what it means to be human, in life and death. If, as Robert Graves wrote, “There is one story and one story only,” we are very lucky that John Crowley is here to tell it to us.” — Los Angeles Times “John Crowley is one of the finest writers of our time.” — Michael Dirda, Washington Post “One of the finest fantasy novels of the year, gains the power of a true epic.” — Chicago Tribune “. . . a read that is simultaneously dry and bizarre, but it’s anything but tiresome. Its original uncanniness is only heightened by Crowley’s new edition, and the specificity of its historical moment made more familiar.” — Emily Nordling, tor.com “Crowley and his collaborators have successfully mixed together disparate elements to create a strange literary concoction that fizzes with creative energy.” — Michael Berry, Portland Press Herald “The Chemical Wedding is full of outlandish set pieces—candles that walk on their own; a queen’s gown so beautiful it can’t be gazed upon—that might suggest an allegorical reading. But their imagery, as Crowley points out in his footnotes, is inconsistent: any allegory is defeated by the book’s sheer incongruity.” — Peter Bebergal, The New Yorker “Crowley is generous, obsessed, fascinating, gripping. Really, I think Crowley is so good that he has left everybody else in the dust.” —Peter Straub “A master of language, plot and characterization, Crowley triumphs in this occult and Hermetic tale, at once naturalistically persuasive and uncannily visionary.” —Harold Bloom “Like a magus, John Crowley shares his secrets generously, allowing us to believe that his book is revealing the true and glorious nature of the world and the reader’s own place within it.” —Village Voice “[Crowley] transforms the lead of daily life into seriously dazzling artistic gold.” —Newsday “So rich and so evocative and so authentic.” —Tom Brokaw “[An] intricate and stylish romp … both a Gothic extravaganza and a picaresque adventure.” —New York Times Book Review “An eerily authentic simulation of Romantic literature … beautiful.” — Boston Globe “Though it’s an impertinent undertaking, it’s also a beautiful success.” —Seattle Time “A complex, nested novel of literary and biographical reconstruction. . . . A stunning, rewarding work.” —Vancouver Sun John Crowley (johncrowleyauthor.com) was born in Presque Isle, Maine, and grew up in Vermont, Kentucky, and Ohio. He went to Indiana University and moved to New York City after college to make movies, and did find work in documentary films, an occupation he still pursues. His novels include the Little, Big, the Ægypt series, Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr, and a new edition of The Chemical Wedding by Christian Rosenkreutz. He recently retired after teaching creative writing at Yale for twenty-five years. He has received the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, Mythopoeic, Locus, and World Fantasy awards. He lives in Conway, MA.