More Shapes Than One

by Fred Chappell

A collection of thirteen short stories which describes what happens to individuals who obtain peculiar objects of their particular desires

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Horror

197 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Fred Davis Chappell retired after 40 years as an English professor at University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He was the Poet Laureate of North Carolina from 1997-2002. He attended Duke University.

His 1968 novel Dagon, which was named the Best Foreign Book of the Year by the Academie Française, is a recasting of a Cthulhu Mythos horror story as a psychologically realistic Southern Gothic.

His literary awards include the Prix de Meilleur des Livres Etrangers, the Bollingen Prize, and the T. S. Eliot Prize.

Reviews

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

After purchasing this older anthology of Chappell’s, I realized that I’d already read over half of them in a newer anthology. In my opinion, go for the newer anthology which features the best older stories. I enjoyed Chappell’s writing style, the genre of magical realism, and the overall theme of shifting realities, but found a few of the stories very difficult to follow in their abstractions.

[Lora · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I wrote at the time, "Chappell is a native of North Carolina and a great storyteller! [...] Most of his stories had a Twilight Zone twist to them. [...] The stories never failed to interest" (and at least one made me laugh out loud).

Most of the stories in the beginning of the book were about scholars of the past. The middle stories were about Southern people and the last were about future or alternative worlds.

[Jenn Li · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent collection of sad and weird stories. My favorite in particular was "The Adder", a modern take on the Necronomicon.

[cat! · Rating 5 out of 5]

chappell's writing continues to impress me; his command of the language and his sense of magical realism is both enveloping and illuminating.

[Jeff Hobbs]

Read so far:

*Linnaeus forgets
Ladies from Lapland
The snow that is nothing in the triangle
Barcarole
*Weird tales
*The somewhere doors
*The adder
Ember
Duet
*Miss Prue
Mankind journeys through forests of symbols
Alma
After revelation
***
The lodger --3
*Encyclopedia Daniel
*Free hand
*Dance of shadows

[Serick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best thing I’ve read so far this year. I always go into short story collections expecting a wide variety in quality. Here, though, every single story is gold. Highly recommend anything here, but especially “The Adder” and “Duet.”

[Tom Leland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Washington Post mentioned Chappell in same breath as Twain, Faulkner and Welty. I don't see it.
He is brilliant in a way -- but that doesn't always make for the most compelling reading. Of all his books,
this is surely one of the least qualified with which to judge all his others by, but I can't help it -- the 1st book you read by someone makes a deep impression. I did very much like "Alma", which I could argue makes as powerful a statement about men's ignorance and hatred of women as does the entire book, The Handmaid's Tale. There are certainly some great bits and pieces in here...but some just too far out for me, and most peopled with characters I either couldn't relate to or couldn't care much about.

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best, to my taste, is "The Adder."