Man V. Nature

August 4, 2014
The characters in Cook’s debut story collection inhabit isolated worlds, bubbles where scores of children are kidnapped and the police don’t notice; where, in keeping with the sharp title story, lost fishermen wait for rescue after a pleasure trip goes awry; and where unwanted boys take to a deserted forest and live out a Lord of the Flies–style tragedy. There’s also an intense fear of the outside world lurking throughout. In “Flotsam,” a woman considers installing an alarm system after random clothing regularly appears in her dryer. “Marrying Up” finds a woman constantly remarrying after her husbands are murdered by groups of riotous thugs occupying the outdoors. And “The Mast Year” chronicles the life of a young woman who, after a string of good fortune, becomes a talisman for the less privileged that arrive at her front door, hoping her luck will rub off. Quirkiness abounds, with several fairy-tale tropes thrown in for good measure (“A Wanted Man,” concerning a lothario known for impregnating neighborhood women, even begins, “There once was a man...”). Some stories jump off the page, others falter, yet all are oddly charming.

September 1, 2014
Cook, who has worked on the radio show This American Life, debuts with 12 mercilessly in-your-face stories. Many exist in a parallel universe where nature and/or society has become a menacing force. A woman living in a prisonlike "shelter for widows and other unwanteds" narrates the only moderately horrifying opening story, "Moving On." Her Placement Team finds her a new husband once she starts following their rules for erasing memories of her past. The second story, "The Way the End of Days Should Be," plunges into an apocalyptic world where floodwaters rise unstoppably. No escape is possible in "It's Coming," either, though the menace here remains unnamed and therefore even more frightening. Both stories have victims/protagonists whose wealth and authority, not to mention careful preparations, prove useless. Water returns as a prime enemy, at least initially, in the title story about three men whose fishing vacation and friendships go horribly wrong when they can't find the supposedly nearby lakeshore. People's need for connection continually gets trampled. Dangerously needy crowds collect like moths around the flame of a young woman's good fortune in "The Mast Year." "Somebody's Baby" and "Marrying Up" evince primal maternal fears. In the former, a man steals babies whenever mothers let their guards down; in the latter, a woman's healthy baby and husband brutalize her. In "A Wanted Man," about loneliness more than sex, a man who can impregnate 50 women in a day is reminiscent of a TV Western gunslinger-admired, envied and marked by those who want to replace him. The erotic nature of teen friendship reaches demented lengths in "Girl on Girl." The strongest, relatively most realistic and hopeful story, "Meteorologist Dave Santana," follows a sexually predatory woman who stalks her neighbor for years while lying to herself that all she cares about is the chase. Cook's sharply honed prose packs an intellectual yet disturbing wallop. Be forewarned: Reading too many of these stories in one sitting may cause suicidal thoughts.

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October 1, 2014
Cook's potent and unnerving stories depict ghastly battles between humans and the brute forces of nature. A former producer for This American Life, Cook ventures without gimmicks or flourishes into the realm of grim fairy tales and dark fables, writing about horrifying predicaments with absolute authority. In Cook's bleak world, the state institutionalizes widows and retrains them for their next assigned marriage and takes away boys fatally designated Not-Needed. Adept at a stark spookiness in the vein of Shirley Jackson and William Golding, Cook also summons up a lonely weirdness like that of Aimee Bender and George Saunders. Monsters abound. An ogre routinely snatches away babies while a woman keeps marrying up, hoping ever-larger men will protect her from the murderous creatures devouring the city's populace. Three men stranded in a small boat grow desperate; a rich man holes up in his mansion, refusing to help his neighbors as waters rise. Cook writes assuredly of archetypal terror and even more insightfully of hungerfor food, friendship, love, and, above all, survival. A canny, refined, and reverberating debut.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)