‘Art is despair with dignity’

Werewolves in Their Youth

Werewolves in Their Youth

Michael Chabon

There are the two boys of the title story, locked in their own world of fantasy and make-believe, reaching out to each other to survive the terrible prospect of fatherlessness. ‘House Hunting’ shows us the grim spectacle of a couple whose marriage is in its death throes, and whose search for a happy home is doomed; in another story a couple struggle to overcome the effects of a brutal rape. Elsewhere, a family therapist comes face to face with the dark secret of his childhood, and an American football star down on his luck makes his peace with his father. The collection culminates in a daring and wonderfully baroque horror story, ‘In the Black Mill’, which chronicles the terrifying fate that befalls an archaeologist as he uncovers cannibalism and ritual sacrifice in a gloomy Pennsylvanian town.

Serious in their subject matter, yet shot through with wit, humour and compassion, these nine short stories are testament to Chabon’s ability to weave together comedy and tragedy with unforgettable results.

Reviews of Werewolves in Their Youth

    • ‘The young star of American letters, “star” not in the current sense of cheap celebrity, but in the old sense of brightly shining hope. He is a writer not only of rare skill and wit but of self-evident and immensely appealing generosity.’ Washington Post
    • ‘What’s most alive in this book is the witty and resonant prose that has always been Chabon’s strength, a prose in which sharp observation shades into metaphor’ New York Times Book Review

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