Bizarre Romance

Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife; The Night Bookmobile) writes tales of wistful unease, normality morphing gently into the weird. Campbell (From Hell; Bacchus), Niffenegger's husband, has illustrated numerous genres, including memoir and horror. For these 13 selections, many previously published, his color storybookish drawings "grow on the lattice each story provides." Some appear as comics, some as illustrated text, and some as mostly text. A man with angels in his attic calls an exterminator but then adopts one as a pet. A woman on a cruise wishes her life had been different—and it happens. Two pieces imagine backstory for real events: a young model photographed getting out of bed by Eadweard Muybridge, and Charles Altamont Doyle painting fairies. In a clever take on postromance blues, a woman ruminates about former boyfriends, concluding: "Next time he will be perfect. Next time." Campbell illustrates this with a simplified naked male paper doll, surrounded by various clothes, accessories, and body parts.