Breakable Things

August 15, 2022
Khaw (Nothing but Blackened Teeth) packs a gruesome punch with the 23 bite-size horror stories of their powerful but slightly uneven debut collection. A brace of standout tales, the stunning and folkloric “You Do Nothing but Freefall” (written with A. Maus) and “A Leash of Foxes, Their Stories like Barter,” both center on vulpine characters. The eldritch and haunting “Don’t Turn on the Lights” and “An Ocean of Eyes” offer glimpses into unknowable horrors, with Khaw wisely allowing readers only a peek into expansive worlds and magic systems. Many of these tales, including “Goddess, Worm” and “And in Our Daughters We Find a Voice,” interrogate gender, trauma, and power, delivering complex female characters who are by turns deeply understandable and entirely unforgivable. While Khaw’s signature lyrical flair will draw readers in, it sometimes verges on overkill, with style clouding substance until character, theme, and plot are entirely obscured by extended metaphors and writerly flourishes. It won’t be for everyone, but the distinctive authorial voice and uncanny atmospherics will surely find some fans. Agent: Michael Curry, Donald Maass Agency.

Starred review from September 1, 2022
This collection of short fiction from horror and SF writer Khaw is stunning--horrific but also beautiful. The author challenges us to look deep inside ourselves, into the dark corners of our minds, and to imagine the unimaginable. This is horror, yes, but not the familiar Big Scary Monsters brand of horror, nor traditional ghost stories. Khaw's stories are decidedly untraditional; they explore the horror of the mind, of the body, of the soul. Each of the more than 20 stories in the book is honed to terrifying perfection, and no two stories are alike, neither in what they're about nor in the way they're written. Khaw finds just the right voice for each story and just the right style. For example, the story from which the collection takes its title, "Some Breakable Things," is written in the infrequently used second-person, addressing the reader directly ("You jolt like a fish on the line"), while "How Selkies Are Made," the book's only previously unpublished story, is more Gothic in flavor, with ornamented prose and structurally elaborate sentences. A masterclass in horror writing between two covers.

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Starred review from October 1, 2022

With their collection of 23 stories, previously published across the genre fiction landscape and one original to this volume, Khaw (Nothing but Blackened Teeth) presents a book that is a terrifying joy to read. Many of the entries invoke fairy tales and/or mythologies from all over the world. They are lyrical, brutal, and intensely unsettling and mostly center women--quite often as the monsters. While not long, the stories are immersive, with lush and detailed settings, intriguing characters, and beguiling and beautiful lines. The original tale, "How Selkies Are Made," and "And in Our Daughters, We Find a Voice" are two water-infused, stellar examples, but every story will dig into the reader, threatening to never let go, especially because each ends perfectly. VERDICT Khaw's critical acclaim and popularity are skyrocketing, and this collection showcases exactly why. It allows readers a chance to swim around in their unique brand of intensely unsettling tales, submerging themselves in a larger pool of their beautiful but horrific waters. For fans of the dark speculative stories by Angela Slatter, Nadia Bulkin, and Samanta Schweblin.

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