White Cat, Black Dog: Stories

Finalist, 2023 Kirkus Prize 

Seven ingeniously reinvented fairy tales that play out with astonishing consequences in the modern world, from one of today's finest short story writers - MacArthur Genius Grant Fellow Kelly Link, bestselling author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Get in Trouble

“Fans of Station Eleven, speculative fiction or simply anyone who needs a brief escape from the hard, cold world will find the prose here magically transporting.” — Salon

Finding seeds of inspiration in the Brothers Grimm, seventeenth-century French lore, & Scottish ballads, Kelly Link spins classic fairy tales into utterly original stories of seekers - characters on the hunt for love, connection, revenge, or their own sense of purpose.

In "The White Cat's Divorce," an aging billionaire sends his three sons on a series of absurd goose chases to decide which will become his heir. In "The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear," a professor with a delicate health condition becomes stranded for days in an airport hotel after a conference, desperate to get home to her wife & young daughter, & in acute danger of being late for an appointment that cannot be missed. In "Skinder's Veil," a young man agrees to take over a remote house-sitting gig for a friend. But what should be a chance to focus on his long-avoided dissertation instead becomes a wildly unexpected journey, as the house seems to be a portal for otherworldly travellers - or perhaps a door into his own mysterious psyche.

“There are, of course, other authors adept at blending the real & the unreal, but there may well be no one who does it as impressively as Link.” — The Boston Globe

Twisting & winding in astonishing ways, expertly blending realism & the speculative, witty, empathetic, & never-predictable - these stories remind us once again of why Kelly Link is incomparable in the art of short fiction.