A fallen tree sparks a poisonous feud between neighbors. A child searches the darkness for the gleam of a tiger’s teeth. A woman holds off a colony of oddly relentless prairie dogs. This is just a taste of the Trespass collection, unsettling stories ranging from horror to magical realism, imagined by the incredible talents of award-winning, best-selling authors Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Stephen Graham Jones, Carmen Maria Machado, Tochi Onyebuchi, Karen Russell, and collection curator Jeff VanderMeer.
Published by Amazon Original Stories, the collection of wild stories about animal instincts, human folly, and survival—is available to read or listen to in a single sitting.
"We’re still, oddly, in the early days of untangling our relationship to nature, to wilderness, to animals—and we have a long way to go," said Jeff VanderMeer. "I wanted to explore what happens when the environment is impinging on you in ways you may not even realize, while also dealing with the complications of territory, how we seem programmed to see our yard, for example, as these separate fiefdoms, even though everything is connected.”
“I loved Jeff's description of Trespass, with its focus on animal-human interactions and its important question, ‘How can we live with each other?'” shared author Karen Russell. “Years ago, I'd gotten the idea for a story about a tortoise who was trained to be a ring bearer at desert weddings. I'd tried to write it from the flower girl's perspective, and it never worked. For Trespass, I returned to that weird party, and a very different voice came into range: A divorced man, a blotto lost soul, who has come to feel like a trespasser wherever he goes. I've been a plus-one many times, and it's always struck me as a hilariously tenuous status—you're a trespasser on someone else's big day. Stag started out as a dark comedy, and I'm glad the tortoise led me deeper into the desert than I'd intended to go. We are all aware that we are trashing our planet, and I think animals can help reawaken the better parts of our nature, the caring that feels essential. Our belonging to a vaster reality than the party tent, or the hard shells of our skulls.”
To hear more on what happens when humans and Mother Nature collide, scroll down for an audio sampling and overview of each story available in the Trespass collection. Available for free to Prime and Kindle Unlimited subscribers, or for a small cost for non-members, the short stories can be downloaded by readers as a Kindle eBook or Audible audiobook.
