Instruction Manual For Swallowing

158Instruction Manual For Swallowing cover image

Adam Marek

Synopsis

Robotic insects, in-growing cutlery, flesh-serving waiters in a zombie cafe… Welcome to the surreal, misshapen universe of Adam Marek’s first collection; a beastiary of hybrids from the techno-crazed future and mythical past; a users’ guide to the seemingly obvious (and world of illogic implicit within it). Whether fantastical or everyday in setting, Marek's stories lead us down to the engine room that throbs just beneath modern consciousness, a place of both atavism and familiarity, where the body is fluid, the spirit mechanised, and beasts often tell us more about our humanity than anything we can teach ourselves.
 

Reviews


Adam Marek writes tales of the fantastic, the grotesque, and the impossible – all set in familiar, even mundane worlds. The effect may be unnerving or moving or hilarious, but always there is the gripping sense of an idea gestating to a point just short of revelation. Underpinning Marek's fantasies there is a nagging psychological realism. In this debut collection, the English short story receives an injection of something new and compelling and spooky.
– Alex Linklater, founder of the National Short Story Prize
 
Marek's fabulously meaty, funny writing makes the short story look really exciting again, pulling you, frame by frame, into a bright, strange future.
– Maggie Gee

List Price £7.95
Price £6.50

Details
ISBN 978 190558304
Publisher Comma Press
Genre Short Fiction
Extent 216pp

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