SHORT STORIES

Dogs and Monsters: Stories

by Mark Haddon
Doubleday. Oct. 2024. 288p. ISBN 9780385550864. $28. F
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Haddon’s (The Pier Falls) latest book is a richly detailed and imaginative short story collection that ably recasts and modernizes both classic Greek mythology—the Minotaur tale in “The Mother’s Story,” for example—and familiar narratives such as H.G. Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau, which inspired “The Wilderness.” The short “D.O.G.Z” is a somewhat strange homage to canines that begins with the retelling of Actaeon, whose dogs tore him limb from limb after the goddess Diana turned him into a stag. Haddon concludes this story by cataloguing of dogs in literature, art, and history, particularly noting the story of Laika, the Russian dog who went into space. The story collection also contains some monstrous humans, like the ones encountered in “My Old School,” a sad reflection on the pecking order in an all-boys’ school.
VERDICT A wonderfully entertaining assortment of grim and dystopic tales that demonstrate Haddon’s tremendous skills and versatility as a storyteller. (The novelist, poet, screenwriter, and children’s book author and illustrator is best known for his award-winning novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.)
Reviewed by Faye A. Chadwell , Dec 20, 2024
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