The Unfinished World: And Other Stories - Softcover

Fabulist authors such as Lauren Groff, Kelly Link, Karen Russell and Margaret Atwood examine monumental family sagas and twisted love affairs through [mythology and fairy tales] because these universal stories demand the profound gravity that emerges only from a distorted sense of reality. Amber Sparks' crackling, dark clutch of sharply focused short stories falls into this canon. . . . Forged in an evocative and sensual fire, these tales transcend tradition to shine new light onto timeless complications.--Lauren LeBlanc

Sparks's stylish second collection is the work of a young writer whose voice feels far wiser than her years...[S]he plays with both fantasy and form. No one story sounds like another, yet her singular voice floats through the collection, tying it together with opulent prose that draws heavily on history and the macabre.--Rachel Syme

In the weird and wonderful tradition of Kelly Link and Karen Russell, Amber Sparks’s dazzling new collection bursts forth with stories that render the apocalyptic and otherworldly hauntingly familiar. In “The Cemetery for Lost Faces,” two orphans translate their grief into taxidermy, artfully arresting the passage of time. The anchoring novella, “The Unfinished World,” unfurls a surprising love story between a free and adventurous young woman and a dashing filmmaker burdened by a mysterious family. Sparks’s stories—populated with sculptors, librarians, astronauts, and warriors—form a veritable cabinet of curiosities. Mythical, bizarre, and deeply moving, The Unfinished World and Other Stories heralds the arrival of a major writer and illuminates the search for a brief encounter with the extraordinary.