Instruction Manual for Swallowing

by Adam Marek

Overview

Revealing a bestiary of hybrids from the techno-crazed future and the mythological past, this surreal short story collection takes imaginative leaps through a science fiction influenced landscape. Reflecting a cinematic feel, young couples reach defining stages in their relationships as zombies fall in love, a stalker tracks a young woman through time only to discover he’s related to her, and a young man battles Godzilla in order to prove a point to his girlfriend. Blurring the boundaries between reality and hallucination—from robotic insects and in-growing cutlery to a woman impregnated with 37 embryos—these fantastical tales offer a world where the body is fluid, the spirit is mechanized, and the beasts know more about humanity than the humans do.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781905583041
Publisher:	Comma Press
Publication date:	12/01/2008
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Adam Marek’s prize-winning stories have appeared in many anthologies and magazines. He won the 2011 Arts Foundation Short Story Fellowship and was shortlisted for the inaugural Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award. This story collection was nominated for the Frank O’Connor Prize. Visit him online at AdamMarek.co.uk.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"…genuine, unsettling talent."  —The Independent

"…a transgressive thrill...delightful."  —The Guardian

"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

"Marek's talent for an almost sweet grotesqueness is on full display." —National Post (April 6, 2012) 

"Marek writes in a deceptively simple style that enhances the reader's ability to accept his wild imaginings as if they are ordinary events faithfully reported by a reliable narrator. In other words, Marek makes the extraordinary seem ordinary, perhaps because his characters are ordinary people who view zombies (for instance) in the same way we might view bad drivers: irritating but commonplace." —www.TzerIsland.com

"Acclaimed British author Marek's collection of short stories is something to shout about. . . . These stories are powerful, and although the situations are unreal, the portrayals of the emotions and humanity are very real." —Booklist (March 15, 2012)

"Each tale builds with mysterious suspense, bringing to mind Neil Gaiman with his fantastical imagination or Bret Easton Ellis with his frenetic intrigue. . . . This is a book that may hold a broad appeal for lovebirds, philosophers and zombie-lovers alike, and that's part of the fun." —Scene Magazine (January 2013)

Editorial Reviews

"Makes the short story look really exciting again." —Maggie Gee, author, The White Family



"There's a transgressive thrill to Adam Marek's debut collection of short stories that's not simply a result of the potency of the subject matter . . . [the] tales as playful and emotionally resonant as they are disturbing . . . delightful." —The Guardian

"Early McEwan meets David Cronenberg—genuine, unsettling talent." —The Independent

From the Publisher