A Time Out New York Best Book of 2014
“Bernheimer presents haunting looks at mothers and daughters, the magic of childhood, and the power of illusion, fantasy, and dreams.”
—San Francisco Book Review
“Bernheimer manages to tickle the cerebrum without sacrificing surface pleasures.”
—The Star Tribune
“Nine nimble stories confront a spectrum of suffering; loneliness, addiction, poverty, and death lay exposed with open language for all to interpret.”
—Entropy
“An impressive array. . . . The way the rules of realism are rewritten makes for a thrilling experience.”
—Vol. 1 Brooklyn
“[Bernheimer is] one of literature’s foremost champions of the fairy tale.”
—Nylon
“You cannot argue with a fairy tale. It is tautology as art form.”
—Slate
“Gobble up these stories as you would a trail of bread crumbs that leads into the dark, magical woods of Kate Bernheimer’s imagination. Here you will be happily lost, sometimes afraid, often amused and always awed.”
—Benjamin Percy
“Kate Bernheimer’s beautiful and daring stories do not lead us to familiar places. She miraculously collapses the distinctions between the quotidian and the wondrous, the enchanted and the cursed, and takes us into the dark woods to wander until we too can see each uncanny branch.”
—Jenny Offill
“These aren’t fairy tales, they’re signposts for the lost—and strange lands await if you go their way.”
—Ben Loory
