The best books of strangely miraculous short fiction

The Elephant Vanishes includes two of my favorite stories by any contemporary writer.

Set in the forested vicinity of a factory that makes elephants, “The Dancing Dwarf” follows the adventures of a marvelous dwarf who once danced for the king, alas, now pursued by soldiers of the revolution. The other side of the spectrum, “The Last Lawn of the Afternoon” partakes of the fantastic only by osmosis. The care this teenage boy takes mowing and trimming his assigned lawns feels so real it reminds me of myself.

This range keeps the reader slightly off balance and full of expectation, which might not be so exciting if we weren’t in the hands of one of the finest practitioners of the craft anywhere in the world.  

Isabel Allende shows us marvels from South American traditions, archetypal stories with the excitement of passionate lovers and desperate bandits.

Once you finish the stories—not one a clunker—your mind will have been temporarily readjusted to the dangerous and fantastical world of deeply hidden human motivations. It’s as good as her autobiographical Paula, which is an education between covers. At first, I wouldn’t read Isabel Allende because two friends told me she imitated Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

I later learned they had not actually read any of her books. I decided to see for myself. Not true, I told them. Read the books.

This collection is an Introduction to an established writer of traditional horror with thirteen stories previously published in magazines, anthologies, or collections. I read these now as a single continuous work (like a symphony) with re-emerging themes.

Weaving in and out throughout the collection, the image of the shape-shifter develops with a wild inventiveness that never spins out of control. The same with the writer’s fascination with music that comes out humorously in the story “Collectable,” disturbingly accurate in “Under Iron.”

There is dark humor working beneath the surface that keeps readers alert and tingling with anticipation, a good effect if you’ve never tingled.  

This collection reads like realistic stories from the perspective of a single point-of-view that throws common life into the realm of the weirdly uncommon.

In fact, I kept reading to figure out what I was reading. What changed in the process? My own perception of the world in which we live. These people may be like us, but the writer looks at them with new and different eyes. These stories sneak up on you and take over your mind for a marvelously short time because it’s a short book of short stories—one I recommend because it’s so unusual.

Daniyal Mueenuddin derives the marvelous from the depiction of wealthy and poor Pakistani characters surviving as gracefully or gracelessly as humanly possible.

Reading at times like social anthropology, at times like magical realism, the stories are folk tales with inspections of and lessons about human foibles. Characters come to life with large and small schemes, machinations, and quasi-unconscious action that arises from a combination of tradition, desperation, and privilege.

The underlying humor, both dark and loving, is something the writer shares with the reader.