Jackal, Jackal: Tales of the Dark and Fantastic

by Tobi Ogundiran

From Shirley Jackson award-nominated author Tobi Ogundiran, comes a highly anticipated debut collection of stories full of magic and wonder and breathtaking imagination!

In "The Lady of the Yellow-Painted Library" -- featured in Levar Burton Reads -- a hapless salesman flees the otherworldly librarian hell-bent on retrieving her lost library book.

"The Tale of Jaja and Canti" sees Ogundiran riffing off of Pinocchio. But this wooden boy doesn't seek to become real. Wanting to be loved, he journeys the world in search of his mother-an ancient and powerful entity who is best not sought out.

"The Goatkeeper's Harvest" contains echoes of Lovecraft, where a young mother living on a farm finds that goats have broken into her barn and are devouring all her tubers. As she chases them off with a rake, a woman appears claiming the goats are her children, and that the young woman has killed one of them and must pay the a goat for a goat.

These and other tales of the dark and fantastic await.

“Superb weird-fantasy fictions… an unfailing capacity for surprise.”
“These stories will captivate readers with their haunting atmosphere, confident voice, and immersive settings.”
“ Jackal, Jackal is a great showcase of Ogundiran’s consistency and strengths of a storyteller and dark fabulist. Forget logic. These are stories you are meant to feel . Think Grimm by way of Amos Tutuola. Stephen King meets Cyprian Ekwensi.” “Ogundiran’s tales revel in small moments that create big ripples. Jackal, Jackal is a collection of such stories, characters grasping at a wish in their own unique, earnest way. An exciting yet intimate collection from a writer who continues to surprise and delight.”
“ Jackal, Jackal is an astonishing debut collection with real teeth.”

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fantasy, Fiction, Anthologies, Science Fiction, Africa

318 pages, Paperback

First published July 18, 2023

About the author

Tobi Ogundiran is the award-winning author of the Guardian of the Gods duology (In the Shadow of the Fall, At the Fount of Creation) and the critically acclaimed collection, Jackal, Jackal. His work has appeared in several Year's Best anthologies, and on the hit podcast LeVar Burton Reads. Originally from Nigeria, he now lives and works in the US South.

Reviews

[Bill Hsu · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the ideas, especially the Nigerian folkloric touches. But the writing in the later pieces seemed to check off a list of my pet peeves.

Some notes:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Becky Spratford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review in the May 1, 2023 issue of Booklist and on the blog: https://raforall.blogspot.com/2023/05...

4.5 Stars.

Three Words That Describe This Book: haunting, immersive, compelling

Quotes from my draft review:

"Clearly framed by the author’s Nigerian roots, but with a conscious nod to dark speculative tales from all over the world, the stories in this volume will captivate readers with their haunting atmosphere, confident voice, and immersive settings."

"A great introduction to an up-and-coming author,* this book will appeal to readers of dark speculative fiction by marginalized voices who actively engage with the white western canon such as Stephen Graham Jones, Marlon James, and Cassandra Khaw."

I would have also included Usman Malik, but Booklist had no reviews. My review of his debut collection was in LJ. Both interestingly are doctors by profession.

More coming soon.

[Tracey Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will support anything Undertow publications releases, and Jackal Jackal, the disturbing debut collection from Tobi Ogundiran is no exception.

My favorites stories:

The Tale of Jaja and Canti - this one made me cry. A story of a wooden male searching for the woman who sang magic into him. This one had such a beautiful ending.

The Lady of the Yellow-Painted Library - Y’all need to return your library books on time! The protagonist of this story does not, and things go incredibly badly for him.

Isn't Your Daughter Such a Doll? - This one unfolded so well, and the final paragraphs left me traumatized. Completely unexpected, and a wonderful example of how Ogundiran can happily lead the reader down a certain path, then push them off the edge.

This collection is huge, and contains such a great variety of stories, from ghost stories, to tales of vengeance, to folklore, to cautionary tales. Highly recommended.

[Azhar · Rating 3 out of 5]

favourite stories include the lady of the yellow-painted library, isn’t your daughter such a doll, the muse of palm house, deep in the gardener’s barrow, the goatkeeper’s harvest.


some of the ideas for these stories were really amazing but for me it was let down by the quite, juvenile writing and weird pacing at times.

[Erin Crane · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first 1/3 of this worked better for me than the rest. But there were a couple at the end I really liked, too. Through the middle it started to feel a bit same-y with people who aren’t what they seem and entities trying to take or possess people/life force.

I picked this up from the “new books” section at the library not having heard of it before. But upon reading it I recognized the second story as one from Africa Risen, and I was pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed that story from the collection, so I thought that was a good sign. Overall, it was!

My favorites:
1. In the Smile Place: Just wonderful horror vibes. Creepy and sad. Love a found footage moment!
2. The Epic of Qu Shittu: I wasn’t into this one immediately, but by the end I loved it. A lot of the stories try to fit too much world building, but in this one it paid off for me. Tragic.
3. Isn’t Your Daughter Such a Doll: Again, great horror. Landed the ending. Managed to surprise me!
4. Jackal, Jackal: Ew. Grotesque. Greedy man looking for shortcuts in relationships…

I also enjoyed The Goatkeeper’s Harvest and The Many Lives of an Abiku. I don’t think any of them were bad, but quite a few never grabbed me.

There’s a mix of contemporary modern horror and folklore/fantasy. All dark stories but not necessarily in your face horror, and that worked for me since this didn’t claim to be a horror collection.

I will definitely read more from Ogundiran in the future because I quite liked some of these.

[Lauren Book Witch · Rating 5 out of 5]

"How do stories begin? How do they endure? An idea, a word, repeated over and over, passed from other to daughter, father to son, from stranger to stranger until it comes alive." Jackal Jackal, Tales of the Dark and Fantastic, is not only dark and fantastic but a dark and shifting miasma of Eldritch beings, Nigerian legends, gods and goddesses, doomed salesmen, boys made from wood, women who shape and shift and rift the cosmos. In these nineteen stories of terror and secrets and the pursuit of perfection at dire costs, Ogundiran pulls no punches when it comes to the weird, the mad and the sublime. This is truly one of the best horror fiction I've read in a long while. Capturing the enduring power of stories, particularly scary stories, Jackal Jackal is a tome of cosmic, gothic, mythological monstrosity and magick.

[The One and Only Maddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Usually I read anthologies to get a taste of many author's writing styles, but in anticipation for a sequel by Ogundiran, I wanted to read this.
The Tale of Jaja and Canti, 2/5: Raise your Jajaja this was a Pinocchio retelling that was mid.
The Lady of the Yellow Painted Library, 4/5: A shivering tale of overdue library books! Less cute than it sounds.
Jackal, Jackal, 3/5: What in the Stephen Graham-cracker Jones?! This was alright, kinda predictable. Good visuals, I'll give it that.
The Epic of Qu Shittu, 4/5: Compelling pirate story spanning a few worlds.
The Many Lives of An Abiku, 3/5: I'm probably gonna forget this one.
Isn't Your Daughter Such a Doll, 3/5: Not really an imaginative twist. Kinda Junji Ito watered down vibe.
The Muse of Palm House, 3/5: Yeah fine.
Here Sits his Ignominy, 3/5: Cute letter.
Lagbaja, 3/5: Kinda didn't care for this one.
Maria's Children, 3/5: Smth smth sea is dangerous treasure isn't yours.
Fael, 3/5: This could've been almost cool, lesson is let your little light shine.
Guardian of the Gods, 4/5: I can see why Ogundiran turned this into a longer length novel, but reading this I wasn't exactly itching to read more which gave me a new perspective?
Drummer Boy in a World of Wise Men, 4/5: I actually liked this. Father son dynamic is a w.
Deep in the Gardener's Barrow, 4/5: This was cool mother daughter dynamic ftw.
Midnight in Moscow, 3/5: This was so weird core, I don't exactly know where to put it.
In the Smile Place, 2/5: Weirdly bad.
The Clockmaker and His Daughter, 3/5: This was alright I suppose.
The Goatkeeper's Harvest, 4/5: Human to animal pipeline akin to Jackal Jackal, but I like.
Pretty much all of these stories were imaginative, unique, and well constructed. I finished this pretty quickly, but looking back none of the stories REALLY got me. Like I'm not sure which one of them I'll be thinking about in a month, a year, etc from now. I'm still gonna read more by the author and love mythology ofc.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.75/5
"Jackal, Jackal: Tales of the Dark and Fantastic" by Tobi Ogundiran is a fantastic short story collection that showcases fantastical worlds, haunting tales, and Ogundiran's vast imagination. The stories vary from pure fantasy and horror to folklore and fabulist tales. All of the stories were excellent though there were a few that stood out as particularly fantastic. A few favorites include:
"The Tale of JaJa and Canti," a Pinocchio adjacent story about a wooden man searching for the woman present at his birth. An absolutely incredible story to kick off the collection.
"The Epic of Qu Shittu," which follows a man who wants to catalog the life of an infamous man and in the process, learns about the complexity of his life and its start in a different world.
"The Muse of Palm House," a haunted house story about an artist who moves into a house and starts painting the caretaker's daughter.
"Here Sits His Ignominy," a flash fiction story about fighting back against colonizers that is probably the best piece of flash fiction I have read.
"Faêl," a fantastical epic told through a short story about a world where a witch king has tricked two of the three moons to give him their light and a man travelling to bury his wife's body.
"Deep in the Gardener's Barrow," about an overgrown forest that fights back against two children.
Though these are my personal favorites, each story is exceptional and this is one of the strongest collections I have read. Ogundiran's worldbuilding is exceptional, especially in the short form. Each story, even the flash fiction, felt like a fully realized world that I would be welcome to spend more time in. I will definitely be checking out his novella and future work. I'll be looking for more of his short stories in the future.

[Sarah]

DNF for now. Beautiful prose and some strong ideas, but very dark. I clearly wasn't in the mood for this book and kept setting it aside. After my third time checking it out from the library I have finally accepted that I'm not going to be finishing this right now, but may come back to it at some point.

[H.V. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this collection! Such a beautiful blending of science fiction, fantasy, and folklore in a stellar group of horror-leaning stories. "The Lady of the Yellow-Painted Library" and "The Smile Place" felt uncannily like actual nightmares I've had. "Jackal, Jackal", "The Many Lives of an Abiku" and "Midnight in Moscow" are my favorites. Definitely recommend!

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short stories in a Nigerian setting. I thought best ones were the horror tales; they were really spine-tinglers: the one about the librarian and the consequence of an overdue book; another about a person who gradually turns into a jackal, and the third about an artist and his strange model.

[Reese · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a tremendous volume of dark short stories that stands tall alongside the greats of this genre.
Ogundiran has a strong, original voice and sets himself as an author to watch with this collection.

[Torie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Goosebumps vibes, nothing super memorable for me tho; the stories all started blending together. I think my favorites were the russian folklore-inspired "midnight in Moscow" and "the clockmaker and his daughter".

[Zoë · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.72

[C J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good

[Bob · Rating 2 out of 5]

The stories were different and no familiar, but the ideas about life were not enlightening for me.

[Charl]

TOO dark and fantastic for me.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible storytelling. One or two stories don't measure up to the rest (The Smile Place, namely), but this collection is, overall, horrifically beautiful and mesmerizing.

[Muno · Rating 5 out of 5]

In such a depressing period of my life, this book made me feel excitement and wonder all at once. I can't even remember who rec'd this to me but I'm so glad they did. 5/5 stars!

[Flávia Santos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Queria ter escrito uma resenha pra cada conto, pra não esquecer (talvez eu volte e tente fazer isso).

Mas vários deles me deram medo, vários despertaram horror ou curiosidade, e todos deram a impressão de serem completíssimos, uma impressionante construção de personagens tridimensionais e universos bem delineados e totalmente diferentes e histórias bem fora de série. Excelente.

[Tobi Ogundiran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dear readers,

The journey to the publication of this book has been long, and I am grateful to have it out in the world. I am overwhelmed with a deluge of emotions, which I've managed to marshal into something articulate in my Author's Note (included and the end of the book and which you absolutely do not have to read):

I came to short fiction by chance. The goal was always to publish a novel, and I tried, naïve teenager that I was, pelting my first drafts at agents who very wisely did not bite (and in most cases did not deign to respond). In my hubris and certainty that I had written the best thing in the world, it did not occur to me that the work needed revision or more work, and I found the general lack of enthusiasm...confusing.

Writing a novel takes time, and I thought I would have a better chance with a short fiction collection.

Ah, the folly of youth.

A good piece of short fiction is one that haunts you long after you’ve read it, imprinting an image, or a feeling. A good piece of short fiction, as opposed to a novel, shines a hyper focus on a singular pivotal moment in the life of a character. I learned this the hard way, but I welcomed the challenge. I came to short fiction by chance, but I fell swiftly in love with it. Having decided on a short story
collection, I spent the summer of 2017 writing the first two stories (Maria’s Children and Isn’t Your Daughter Such a Doll) and as a test, I sent them out to magazines, and to my utter surprise, Maria’s Children got accepted for publication! To this day I cannot explain the joy I felt at that first accep-
tance. Someone read my work, loved it enough to offer me money for it! I was, perhaps, really good at this! Fresh off that high I sent out the next story to that same editor who promptly rejected it. I was not to be defeated. I had tasted victory, and like a parched marooner who’s glimpsed the suggestion of an oasis in the distance, I shouldered on. During lectures, while my long-suffering professors explained the pathophysiology of diseases, I would lose myself in the world of an abiku, or spend the day daydreaming of crafty wizards and forests that are not really forests; brainstorming plots and rushing home afterwards to scribble away.

And I fell in love with it.

I read voraciously. I imitated my favorite writers; studying the mechanics of a good story, pilfering liberally techniques I liked, until my voice emerged. The rejections were (and are still) endless, but here and there an acceptance broke the deluge, and that was enough to keep me writing the next story, and the next, and the next.

Barring some minor sentence-level edits, these stories are pretty much as they appeared in the initial magazine publications. They are, to me, Polaroids; snapshots of who I was craft-wise and as a person when I penned them. But most importantly, I love them. Not in the least bit because the money made from their sale helped put food on the table of this piss-poor med student. I am not the person/
writer I was when I wrote these stories, and in as much as I try to capture that person, I can’t. And that’s ok. There’s a certain peace in the knowledge that I am getting better (or I’ve been lied to and this is a particularly long and elaborate joke. If that’s the case, please carry on!)

I remain thoroughly befuddled and utterly humbled that some of these stories have gone on to be nominated for awards! All I’ve ever wanted was to tell stories, to tell them as I like to hear them, to guide a reader into a fantastic world through the sheer magic of my words. I hope to continue to do so as long as I have breath in me. If you’ve read on to the end you are a rockstar. And I want to thank you for coming on this dark and fantastical journey with me.

Tobi Ogundiran
Oxford, MS
January 2023

[Danielle (Danni) Vinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had a gut feeling when I saw this book that I would love it. My gut was right. This collection is excellent. It's full of life, and colour, and terror. The writing is stunning, and the language is just gorgeous. Every story worked for me, and 11 out of the 17 got stars in my notebook. As always, there are a few standouts...

~Isn't Your Daughter Such A Doll
~Lábájá
~Deep In the Gardener's Barrow
~In the Smile Place
~The Clockmaker and His Daughter

I highly recommend this one.

[Jacqueline Nyathi · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://shonareads.wordpress.com/2023...

What a delight this collection of dark fantasy this is! I love short story collections where an author shows off their range, and Tobi Ogundiran does that wonderfully here.

Although most of these stories have been published before, I was lucky in that I had only read a couple—memorably, The Goatkeeper’s Harvest, which I encountered in The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction 2021, edited by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki—one of my top 5 African books for The Continent in 2021.

Apart from that story, about the most terrifying goats you’ll never meet (based, the author says, on his experience with West African dwarf goats when he was seven), there are: haunted ships, a haunted gothic manor, a haunted library (with a librarian who eats lizards), an interstellar villain, an abiku (a spirit child from Nigerian mythology), a sentient forest (eeeek. So much for my nature walks), a haunted mall, a lágbájá (a kind of Nigerian changeling), and even Baba Yaga, from Russian mythology, makes an appearance. I especially love that the collection blends the sensibility of Western fairytales (yes we all grew up on those) with West African mythology and cosmology—making this collection a possible future for African fantasy, which really excites me. I also love that Ogundiran accesses his experiences and memories in his writing—elaborated on in the story notes and author note at the back of the book. Finally, although there’s one story that’s very clearly post-colonial—Here Sits His Ignominy—the entire collection is a kind of tongue-in-cheek reimagining of fairytale and fantasy literature, which are, as we know, notoriously Eurocentric.

So! Very highly recommended. The writing is very strong, Ogundiran’s imagination and world-building are boundless, and this anthology is very fun.

Thank you to Edelweiss and to Undertow Publications for access to this DRC!

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another winner from Undertow, which continues to do a wonderful job of finding/attracting talented new voices. Ogundiran is especially interested in the resonances of Nigerian folklore, the way age-old stories speak to contemporary concerns. As he notes, several of his stories end up echoing, say, Hansel and Gretel or Pinocchio, often without his consciously intending them to, which adds another layer to the notion that there's something cross-culturally elemental in those tales. (Another vote for authors' notes; these reveal how often he was inspired by, say, something he saw on social media, as well as how often he's using of-the-moment social issues--the fungibility of truth, say--to reimagine his takes on traditional tales.) If there's a mission statement, it might come in the Russian story: "We were no longer in the present as I understood it, bound by the rigor of rationale; we were in an old place, at the origin and dawn of things." Standouts for me: the one about the librarian (would love to know the resonances he's thinking about with the book in question being Things Falls Apart), the title story, the flash-fictive response to colonialism, the haunted mansion, the one about the mall, the Lovecraft-in-Nigeria bit featuring yams and tentacles (yes!). He writes beautifully and intuitively about the voice of the talking drum in the drummer story. As a personal preference, I'd love to see him grounding more stories in the particulars of a time and place rather than a kind of eternal folkloric present, just because it feels like doing that would showcase his perspective and experiences in a different way. His next published work, according to the notes, is a fantasy epic, so he may be heading in a different direction.

[Janine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jackal Jackal was a complete surprise to me. I picked this short story collection up as a whim because I was intrigued by the cover art and the title. I was happily surprised by the vivid prose and unsettling stories.

Folk and fairy tales are my favourite kinds of stories, so my reviews are usually favourable, but this collection is memorable and fascinating even if you're not a superfan of the genre. The quality of the stories is consistently strong, and there are a few really ambitious ideas that are executed deftly. The strongest efforts, for me, were the urban legend types that stuck to a relatively simple premise. Jackal Jackal, The Lady of the Yellow Painted Library, and Your Daughter is Such a Doll were my favourite but I'll likely be returning to reread this book when I am in the mood for a fable.

[Shinyfluff · Rating 5 out of 5]

an incredible collection of dark and fantastic tales! each story I thought was my favorite....until I got to the next one! I really loved this marvellous collection and very often had chills. I also really enjoyed the Story Notes that took the readers along with the author in explaining the origins and thoughts behind each tale

[J Kuria · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

Hits all over the place but if I had to absolutely highlight only 5 stories, these would be my picks:

The Lady of the Yellow Painted Library
Jackal, Jackal
Drummer Boy in a World of Wise Men
Midnight in Moscow
The Goatkeeper's Harvest

[Andre Boone · Rating 5 out of 5]

2023 is a good year for anthologies. Jackal, Jackal adds to that goodness with it's broad range of horror stories. In particular, Midnight in Moscow stood out for me - such a good ending!