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Dream Of The Wolf
Presents a collection of short stories that explore the dark fantasies and disturbing dreams that haunt the subconscious minds of ordinary people
239 pages, Hardcover
First published November 14, 1990
About the author
Scott Bradfield
71 books31 followersScott Michael Bradfield is an American essayist, critic and fiction writer who resides in London, England.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_B...
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 5, 2008
Short story collections are difficult for me, but I really enjoyed this strange conglomeration - mostly because Bradfield has such a great imagination. A few of the stories reminded me of Bret Easton Ellis's "American Psycho" - and the stories have a similar appeal: the result of a consumer culture on society, how people cope w/ abuse, etc. It's a dream-like collection; the characters go about their everyday lives, and yet behind the facade is a strange and disturbing world of wolves and imaginary affairs and holes in the earth. Truly great and a super fun read.
July 8, 2024
From "The Darling"
"Dolores loved the world of books, which were a lot like adulthood, she thought. Both seemed rather smoothly improbable, at once perfectly real and perfectly contrived, like the uniform plaid tweed skirt and red wool sweater she had worn to a Catholic girls' school when she was very small. That was before Grandma died, and Dad started drinking.
Books made people different, she thought. That's why Daniel was different. That's why Dolores felt different every day, after every book. It felt as if every book she read somehow altered her chemical constitution" (35).
From "Sweet Ladies, Good Night, Good Night"
"'Love's the way we learn the world's immediacy, and so we need it more. Love holds things in context. Love's the melody, and sex just the individual chords in a song. That's why love's so much more important to us when we're alone. Sometimes I think I'd give up my entire life for love. Sometimes I think I already have. Would you like to stop here? Would you like an ice cream?' They were standing outside Haagen-Dazs in the enormous shopping mall. The mall was filled with couples, families, and running children. The windows displayed elegant clothes, furniture, table settings and expensive toys. The air reverberated with golden light. Plastic stools and benches down the centers of each aisle were crowded with dazed, expressionless shoppers and their baggage. The shoppers seemed to be contemplating nothing. They seemed very enervated, and annoyed with themselves for feeling so tired" (57-58)
From "Dazzle"
"Some days Dazzle was so depressed he couldn't even get out of bed to go to the bathroom. He lay on his desultury, twisted blanket beside the water heater in the basement and awaited the occasional click of the thermostat and the rush of the gas fire which meant Mother was washing dishes or doing laundry. Dazzle never knew what it was exactly. He just felt a sort of vague and indefinable anxiety, a certain fundamental sadness at the inconclusiveness of things. It was the way he felt when he saw a dead cat in the road. Dazzle hated cats, but when he saw them squashed and senseless in the splattered street he didn't hate them at all anymore. He sniffed at them; they didn't even smell like cat. They smelled like hot asphalt, transmission fluid, and gasoline. Sometimes Dazzle just lay on his blanket for hours contemplating the meaninglessness of dead cats" (140).
"'His legs carried him steadily and rhythmically in no direction at all, and for a while he preferred this sort of primal nomadic state of disaffected consciousness. 'It's not the rhythm of the primitive we've lost,' Dazzle said out loud sadly, to nobody in particular. 'It's the rhythm of history itself' Other dogs appeared and sniffed at Dazzle, and with impatient formality, Dazzle sniffed back" (144).
"'The world's crisis is a crisis of representation,' Dazzle explained as they descended the mountain. 'We're always representing our lives one way or another. We never live them. We never even live them *as* representations, which is an idea I've been giving a lot of thought to recently'.'" (152).
From "The Wind Box"
"'When I came to LA in 1972, I had nothing,' Dr. Simonson said. 'I was driving a '63 Chevy Nova. It had three bald tires and no brakes. If I wanted to stop, I had to downshift into low, then pull out the emergency brake. I was drinking two quarts of Albertson's whiskey a day. I was going nowhere fast. I was going to hell in a handcart. Then I met a girl on the beach at Venice and told her about my dream. I dreamed of an institute that wasn't an institute. I dreamed of a corporation that wasn't a corporation. I dreamed of a radical organization which wouldn't get into any trouble. I dreamed of a group of people sharing their noblest thoughts and ambitions. I dreamed of all this.' He gestured abstractly with his teacup. THe bay windows, library, contracted swimming pool. The San Fernando Valley lay spread out in the distance, dully glittering like an enormous transistor component. 'Her father was Andrew McLanahan, senior vice president of the Fluor Corporation, and she had a trust fund she wanted to do some good with. She believed in my dream. As a result, my dream became a reality.' He poured more tea, gazing absently out the sparkling bay window. The entire valley was bleached with smog, as if everything in the world were falling into whiteness around them, everything except for this room" (189).
From "The Secret Life of Houses"
"There was nothing you could do to change or influence some things. Everything lived its own life down there in the basements of houses and bodies" (240).
"Dolores loved the world of books, which were a lot like adulthood, she thought. Both seemed rather smoothly improbable, at once perfectly real and perfectly contrived, like the uniform plaid tweed skirt and red wool sweater she had worn to a Catholic girls' school when she was very small. That was before Grandma died, and Dad started drinking.
Books made people different, she thought. That's why Daniel was different. That's why Dolores felt different every day, after every book. It felt as if every book she read somehow altered her chemical constitution" (35).
From "Sweet Ladies, Good Night, Good Night"
"'Love's the way we learn the world's immediacy, and so we need it more. Love holds things in context. Love's the melody, and sex just the individual chords in a song. That's why love's so much more important to us when we're alone. Sometimes I think I'd give up my entire life for love. Sometimes I think I already have. Would you like to stop here? Would you like an ice cream?' They were standing outside Haagen-Dazs in the enormous shopping mall. The mall was filled with couples, families, and running children. The windows displayed elegant clothes, furniture, table settings and expensive toys. The air reverberated with golden light. Plastic stools and benches down the centers of each aisle were crowded with dazed, expressionless shoppers and their baggage. The shoppers seemed to be contemplating nothing. They seemed very enervated, and annoyed with themselves for feeling so tired" (57-58)
From "Dazzle"
"Some days Dazzle was so depressed he couldn't even get out of bed to go to the bathroom. He lay on his desultury, twisted blanket beside the water heater in the basement and awaited the occasional click of the thermostat and the rush of the gas fire which meant Mother was washing dishes or doing laundry. Dazzle never knew what it was exactly. He just felt a sort of vague and indefinable anxiety, a certain fundamental sadness at the inconclusiveness of things. It was the way he felt when he saw a dead cat in the road. Dazzle hated cats, but when he saw them squashed and senseless in the splattered street he didn't hate them at all anymore. He sniffed at them; they didn't even smell like cat. They smelled like hot asphalt, transmission fluid, and gasoline. Sometimes Dazzle just lay on his blanket for hours contemplating the meaninglessness of dead cats" (140).
"'His legs carried him steadily and rhythmically in no direction at all, and for a while he preferred this sort of primal nomadic state of disaffected consciousness. 'It's not the rhythm of the primitive we've lost,' Dazzle said out loud sadly, to nobody in particular. 'It's the rhythm of history itself' Other dogs appeared and sniffed at Dazzle, and with impatient formality, Dazzle sniffed back" (144).
"'The world's crisis is a crisis of representation,' Dazzle explained as they descended the mountain. 'We're always representing our lives one way or another. We never live them. We never even live them *as* representations, which is an idea I've been giving a lot of thought to recently'.'" (152).
From "The Wind Box"
"'When I came to LA in 1972, I had nothing,' Dr. Simonson said. 'I was driving a '63 Chevy Nova. It had three bald tires and no brakes. If I wanted to stop, I had to downshift into low, then pull out the emergency brake. I was drinking two quarts of Albertson's whiskey a day. I was going nowhere fast. I was going to hell in a handcart. Then I met a girl on the beach at Venice and told her about my dream. I dreamed of an institute that wasn't an institute. I dreamed of a corporation that wasn't a corporation. I dreamed of a radical organization which wouldn't get into any trouble. I dreamed of a group of people sharing their noblest thoughts and ambitions. I dreamed of all this.' He gestured abstractly with his teacup. THe bay windows, library, contracted swimming pool. The San Fernando Valley lay spread out in the distance, dully glittering like an enormous transistor component. 'Her father was Andrew McLanahan, senior vice president of the Fluor Corporation, and she had a trust fund she wanted to do some good with. She believed in my dream. As a result, my dream became a reality.' He poured more tea, gazing absently out the sparkling bay window. The entire valley was bleached with smog, as if everything in the world were falling into whiteness around them, everything except for this room" (189).
From "The Secret Life of Houses"
"There was nothing you could do to change or influence some things. Everything lived its own life down there in the basements of houses and bodies" (240).
November 10, 2022
“Dream of the Wolf” - 6.5
- Only partially salvaged by Bradfield’s decision to extend the wolf-becoming beyond the husband and into his wife, as well, as that moved the theme from a tired (if reflexively enjoyable, to me, at least) tale of male suburban ennui into a broader one of the illusory threshold between “keeping it together” modernity and a primal urge towards natural freedom (the clunkiness of the phrasing there signals one of the story’s bigger problems: that the exact nature of wolf-ness is never specified, and therefore less applicable to the mundane as any sort of commentary or correction) for all those adrift in the workaday restrictions of the former, regardless of gender or occupational expectations. Only partially, though, for, as is often the case with the “weird,” the narrative absences and explanatory silences here are less telling ambiguities than convenient covers for half-baked premises. STORY:
- Only partially salvaged by Bradfield’s decision to extend the wolf-becoming beyond the husband and into his wife, as well, as that moved the theme from a tired (if reflexively enjoyable, to me, at least) tale of male suburban ennui into a broader one of the illusory threshold between “keeping it together” modernity and a primal urge towards natural freedom (the clunkiness of the phrasing there signals one of the story’s bigger problems: that the exact nature of wolf-ness is never specified, and therefore less applicable to the mundane as any sort of commentary or correction) for all those adrift in the workaday restrictions of the former, regardless of gender or occupational expectations. Only partially, though, for, as is often the case with the “weird,” the narrative absences and explanatory silences here are less telling ambiguities than convenient covers for half-baked premises. STORY:
April 12, 2024
Superb collection of short stories, all of which share other-worldly off-kilter "shimmer", and speak to me in ways that defy simple explanation. 6-star individual highlights were "Greetings From Earth" and "White Lamp", but "The Dream Of The Wolf", "The Darling" and "Closer To You" weren't far off either.
May 18, 2026
The Dream of the Wolf ~ ★★★★
The Darling ~ ★★★★
Sweet Ladies, Good Night, Good Night ~ ★★★
Unmistakably the Finest ~ ★★★★
Ghost Guessed ~ ★★★
The Flash! Kid ~ ★★★
Greetings From Earth ~ ★★★
Dazzle ~ ★★★
White Lamp ~ ★★★★
The Other Man ~ ★★★★
The Wind Box ~ ★★★
Closer to You ~ ★★★
The Secret Life of Houses ~ ★★★★
The Darling ~ ★★★★
Sweet Ladies, Good Night, Good Night ~ ★★★
Unmistakably the Finest ~ ★★★★
Ghost Guessed ~ ★★★
The Flash! Kid ~ ★★★
Greetings From Earth ~ ★★★
Dazzle ~ ★★★
White Lamp ~ ★★★★
The Other Man ~ ★★★★
The Wind Box ~ ★★★
Closer to You ~ ★★★
The Secret Life of Houses ~ ★★★★
March 2, 2008
some of my favorite short stories, simple and bizarre
one with an amazing canine
one with an amazing canine
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews