Long-listed for the 2016 Edge Hill Short Story Prize

Songs of the drowned and a dog with wings...

"The world was a grey place once, concrete grey and striped with grey; clay against stone. The pigeons stretched out their scrawny lives and lived as creatures must. Yet they were not hateful birds. They wore their poverty like overcoats; they sat upon the highest places and drizzled the whole world with their compassion. Their souls were dignified as tarnished spoons; pigeons bore witness to the sadness and the tearing of the wind."

By turns tender and unsettling, this book lurks at the tattered edges of the world, where Satan's daughter wants to die of love and a woman is paralysed with fear in the 24-hours Tesco. There are jokes here too, and you cannot trust the ground beneath your feet. The angels keep stealing God's fags and the dog is hauled up before a kangaroo court.

Fates of The Animals is a book for those who remember fairytales and the TV Test-card; those who like to feel a little uneasy; those who sometimes lie awake in the night.

About the Author
Padrika Tarrant was born in 1974. She read sculpture at Norwich School of Art, where she developed an unhealthy fixation with scissors and the animator Jan Svankmajer. Fates of the Animals is her third book, following Broken Things (Salt 2007) and The Knife Drawer (Salt 2011). She lives in Norwich with her beautiful daughter and some lovely stuffed animals. She does not entirely trust her cutlery.

Reviews

Tarrant's book of stories claps in blacked rooms, has a smile as wide as the Ripper's blade, prowls in midnight back alleys until the threadbare structure of the world's bones has some meat. It's not jaded, it has wonder, she would stop to gain knowledge of leaves ballet dancing down in a purple sky, and that's a rarity nowadays in this cynical world of austerity and celebrity. They could even be read to children as bedtime stories, and that is the greatest compliment I think I could give.

-- Grant Tarbard * Ink, Sweat and Tears *


Awards
Long-listed for Edge Hill Prize for the Short Story 2016 (UK).



Book Information
ISBN 9781907773587
Author Padrika Tarrant
Format Paperback
Page Count 128
Imprint Salt Publishing
Publisher Salt Publishing
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 9mm