Horses Dream of Money: Stories

by Angela Buck

  2021 Big Other Book Award Fiction Finalist

A visceral, stark, and deadpan collection of stories that brilliantly fuse humor with horror
 
Horses Dream of Money is a daring collection of tales, darkly humorous, that eerily channels the surreal and sinister mood of the times. Preoccupied with the fault lines between life and death, and veering often into horror, Angela Buck brings a raw energy and witty sobriety to these accounts of human life and connection with the intimacy of fireside-storytelling, gimlet-eyed revelry in bloodletting, and a masterful sleight of hand between the fantastical and the quotidian.
 
“The Solicitor” reinvents the coming-of-age story as a romance-for-hire between a girl and her “solicitor,” a man whose services are demanded by her mother and enforced by a cruel master. “Coffin-Testament” is a fabulous futuristic account of the extinction of human life on earth written 1,667 years later by a group of lady robots channeling Sir Thomas Browne to muse on their own mortality. “The Bears at Bedtime” documents a compound of cuddly kind worker-bears and their ruthless doings. “Bisquit” imagines today’s precariat as a lovable horse who is traded from one master to another until a horse race brings his maddeningly repetitive adventures to a violent conclusion.
 

Genres: Short Stories

196 pages, Paperback

Published February 23, 2021

Reviews

[Emily Jang · Rating 4 out of 5]

The opening story was bewildering to me, but its short length and strangeness were enough for me to take the book home (bless public libraries for stocking new books from small publishers!). I thought the second story, "The Balloon-Men," demonstrated early on Buck's skill at building deeply original scenarios that are uncanny, creepy, and still very funny. What made this collection so enjoyable was how effortless it was to suspend my disbelief: tiny cake-topper friends, talking horses, a society of bears, a disappearing/appearing key, revival from the dead, a post-human world run by lady robots etc. etc. etc. I was drawn happily and willingly into each new story, excited for who/what/where lay ahead. Of course, as with all collections of short stories, there are some hits and some misses. Most stories ended without clear resolutions, but that's not an unsatisfying thing: I don't believe the point is to have a neat bow-topped story. Generally, I think a lot can be gained from the reading experience by asking ourselves of what stories evoke in each of us. For me, this book stirred in me a great sense of giddiness, dark chuckles, but most of all, wonder.

[Aimee Parkison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surreal joy meets dark humor in the very best experimental fashion!

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tripped me out hard.