Restless Town

by Madison Scott-Clary

Restless Town is a collection of ten furry short stories from the fictional town of Sawtooth, Idaho, exploring the themes of identity, sexuality, and mental health.


The Fool - A student and a motherly badger explore questions of identity through a tarot reading.
Disappearance - A weasel attempts to escape from her life in Sawtooth to Oregon, but finds her old life still tied to home.
Fisher - A fisher walks and hunts for meaning.
Centerpiece - A couple heads to a BDSM play party where the wife will be the Centerpiece for the whole party to enjoy. With fertility already on the mind, will another mink showing up throw a wrench in things?
You're Gone - A husband grieves the loss of his wife through instant messages.
Overclassification - A chronically neat otter's life is thrown into disarray when she takes a homeless ringtail in from the cold.
Acts of Intent - A coyote burns meaning into the world around him.
Every Angel is Terrifying - Derek MacIver struggles to hold his life together through the ups and downs of bipolar disorder.
What Defines Us - Darren and his mother struggle with the rammifications of the past repeating itself.
A Theory of Attachment - Living with obsessive-compulsive disorder is tough without a support network, so when S�l�ne's changes, stress runs high.

234 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 15, 2019

About the author

Madison Rye Progress, also writing under the name Madison Scott-Clary, is an author of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry living in the Pacific Northwest. Her interests lie in the realms of furry fiction and non-fiction, collaborative fiction, and hypertextual writing. She is a member of the Furry Writers' Guild, and editor for several projects, fiction and non-fiction. She holds an MFA from Cornell College where she studied the lyric essay and teaching creative writing in fandom- and subculture-specific spaces.

Reviews

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems strange to call a book 'gentle' when it comes with content warnings, but this collection earns the title with a series of introspective pieces in which thoughts and feelings are slowly and carefully explored.

I love furry slice-of-life, and I love stories set in and around a single location - and what author wouldn't like to visit coffee bar-cum-bookshop The Book and the Bean? Above all, I valued the sensitive, realistic portrayals of anxiety and depression. Sawtooth is a restful town as far as I'm concerned.

[Linnea · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can find a full review of this book story by story here on the Furry Book Review.

Restless Town is a collection of stories written by Madison Scott-Clary. Published in various anthologies and places, they all cover different themes, ideas, and lives of different people. A quick warning before we get onto the full review: many of the stories contain moments of sexuality among other themes that may be difficult for certain readers. All of these are mentioned in the book itself before you start reading which is a wonderful touch.

I expect that I will be carrying these stories in my heart and mind for quite some time. While not as heavy on anthropomorphic themes as some books I’ve read, the characters that drive these stories forward are all vibrant and fantastic. Restless Town gets a recommendation from me for anyone that wants to deeply examine emotions and understand the world from a different perspective. These stories have so much to offer, I look forward to reading more works from Madison Scott-Clary in the future!

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd describe this book as blank-positive. It's not a fun, easy romp, but it's an exploration of some topics that can be rather frowned upon. It's looking at neurodivergent, gender identity, sexual orientation, and really examining some of these topics. For sure, I ended most of these stories wanting to hug someone for the characters seem to be in want of an empathic person most of the time.

But there's some genuine moments of joy and catharsis, and the knowledge that things may not feel like they're going to be okay, but they're at least going to be acknowledged and worked on.

[Altivo Overo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is very well written, but my own experiences are so foreign to the ones described that it was hard for me to understand, let alone get involved. Mind, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being trans, or having poly relationships. I'm just an outsider to all that and left puzzled and mystified.

[Michael Miele · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think Restless Town may be one of the first collections of short stories I've read that all seem to be semi-autobiographical. The author has truly put a lot of herself into these stories all centered around Sawtooth, Idaho. There's a special kind of earnestness I felt while reading. Like the author was showing parts of her life in these characters and in sharing them feeling better about it. I really enjoyed the stories as well, my favorites being: Disappearance, You're Gone, and Overclassification. These stood out the most to me because I found myself seeing traits of the characters in myself. If you're looking for an earnest collection of furry stories that may help you confront and own your vulnerabilities I would recommend picking this up.

[Rae Witcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bunch of slice of life small town stories. I enjoyed some a lot more than others but each Madison is an excellent storyteller.

[Casimir Laski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like her later collection, A Wildness of the Heart, Madison Scott-Clary’s Restless Town is comprised of a number of slice-of-life stories featuring anthropomorphic characters, often touching on themes of romantic attraction, sexuality, and identity, though with more focus here on mental health and trauma. While the breadth of the stories makes it likely that readers will not find every one of them equally compelling, the author’s prose remains elegant and graceful throughout, with her characters’ portrayals—regardless of their diverse situations, and despite their existence as anthropomorphic animals—never failing to feel thoroughly human.

My favorite story, Every Angel is Terrifying, manages to be simultaneously beautiful and soul-crushing in its moving depiction of a young dog suffering from bipolar disorder. Honorable mentions include Overclassification, which tells the story of an otter with obsessive-compulsive symptoms working as a college librarian, who takes in a young homeless woman during a blizzard; and Disappearance, following a weasel fleeing from an abusive relationship, attempting to start life anew in a small town. [7/10]

[Kira Nora Zinnecker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A theory of attachment left me feeling so warm and romantic inside. It's clear Scott-Clary has her own unique style of writing even if this was written from a purely "furry" perspective. As a woman with OCD this story alone felt very personal to me. Along with 9 other great stories varying from romantic to gut-wrenching, all featuring anthro-animal characters.

[Packwolf Lupestripe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Restless Town is an incredibly diverse selection of short stories set around the town of Sawtooth, Idaho.

Some of the topics are heavy, but they are written with incredible sensitivity, as if the author's own life is seeping into them. Favourites include 'You're Gone' which focuses on the grieving process and the BDSM-inspired 'Centerpiece'.

The one I found the most powerful was 'A Theory of Attachment', which focuses on OCD, relationships and sexuality as it resonated strongly with my own life. I hadn't read a story with a protagonist who so accurately reflected my own neurodivergence.

Meanwhile, 'Disappearance' is so beautifully bittersweet that it has left a lasting impression and is a story I keep coming back to.

These stories are not for the faint-hearted, but they are powerful, emotional and well-crafted. I would definitely recommend picking this book up.

[Pão Pão · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tons of amazing short stories in this one, theory of attachment takes the cake though.