What if Captain Hook gave up marauding and took a gig at the Post Office? How did Hamlet's uncle Claudius become such a rat? What might happen if a plastic surgeon fell for Medusa? If Moby Dick could write a letter, what would he say to Ahab? The answers to these and many other questions can be found in Tales the Devil Told Me by Jen Fawkes - winner of the 2020 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction.
These twelve stories examine the possible lives of such classic literary villains as Professor Moriarty, Shere Khan, Rumpelstiltskin, Polyphemus, Mrs. Danvers and others, while illuminating the consumptive nature of love, the crushing weight of isolation, the false promise of beauty, and the power of storytelling itself.
“By turns witty and dark, extravagant and savage.” – Locus
“Retelling and reimagining stories from pop culture to Shakespeare, in this sophomore collection, Fawkes cements herself as a master of the short story.” – Buzzfeed
“When [Fawkes] reimagines these classics, she wrings another layer of meaning from them—the adult layer, the shades of gray, the ability to perceive the humanity within the so-called monster.” – Chicago Review of Books
“Fawkes’s stories don’t simply long to provide motivation for a character’s badness . . . but rather her collection is united around characters suffering from pervasive loneliness and longing for love—two human qualities anyone, villain or victim, could understand.” – Ploughshares
https://www.jenfawkes.com/