The Doll's Alphabet

Grudova’s] writing is haunting and humorous, and the attention to gender dynamics adds a layer of truth to these dark tales.” —NewPages “Grudova’s prose is both elegant and nonchalant, offering horrific imagery as if nothing were untoward, and a feminist subtext colours almost every story.” —Buzz Mag “These stories draw on images and myths you know—mermaids, werewolves, children’s dolls—but they’ve been reinvented with darker, dreamier twists.” —MPR “The Doll’s Alphabet, Camilla Grudova’s debut short story collection, splits open a dollhouse of domestic life and allows us to examine the magical dystopian interior. . . . Grudova’s images also offer strange glimpses into human interiority, giving shape to unknown emotions.” —Arkansas International “Camilla Grudova’s collection will appeal to anyone who loves weirdness with a message.” —Bustle “Grudova’s beguiling collection of short stories—filled with mermaids and werewolves—announces the arrival of a major new voice in Canadian fiction.” —Globe and Mail “Grudova’s continued inventive reworking of a few key symbols—canned food, dolls, and mirrors also among them—is one of the book’s most intriguing qualities. . . . An interest in the (often female) body and the ways it can be misused drives many of her stories, whether the protagonist is a mother who turns into a wolf every night or a refined gentleman with eight legs, giving the collection a pointed and somewhat political undertone.” —The Last Magazine “This collection of uncanny stories mixes the grotesque with the mundane to largely, extraordinary effect.” —Tor.com “At once illuminating and completely unsettling, The Doll’s Alphabet is an incredible collection featuring stories that almost feel as if they exist in a shared world in the not-too-distant future. These are stories about obsessions and perceptions, imbalances of privilege, the absorbing and painful nature of motherhood, and spooky mundanities like tinned meats, costumes, and sewing machines. Full of memorable moments; fascinating, vivid details; and grotesque facts of the body, The Doll’s Alphabet is an intelligent exploration of identity, femininity, and attraction.” —Johanna Albrecht, Flyleaf Books “The Doll’s Alphabet is a haunting short story collection that is impossible to put down or forget. I read it all in one day because I was just so transfixed and couldn’t begin to imagine where the stories were going. Grudova writes wonderfully strange stories that have a semblance of normal domesticity until something surreal, and sometimes grotesque, happens. With themes of sewing, stitching, transformation, and womanhood and reminders of the work of Atwood or Kafka, this is a timely collection for those brave enough to try it.” —Katrina Bright, Books & Company “Beautifully embroidered with exquisite and vulgar details, this collection reminded me of nothing more than traveling through a Hannah Hoch photomontage.” —Unabridged Bookstore newsletter, Staff Picks “I adored this grotesque jewel box of a book! Most of these menacing stories take place in a dystopian world similar enough to our own to leave you disquieted. Grudova weaves recurring motifs (among them, sewing machines, golden syrup, doll parts, vermin, and things packed in tin) and themes (principally the systematic subjugation of women and the desire to mechanize portions of one’s body) throughout these stories, constructing a universe that appears to be the result of commonplace assumptions taken to their furthest logical conclusions. Beautifully embroidered with exquisite and vulgar details, this collection reminded me of nothing less than traveling through a Hannah Höch photomontage.” —Katharine Solheim, Unabridged Bookstore “If your aesthetic includes dusty shops, wandering mermaids, sewing machines, stark living conditions with food in tins, and feminism, The Doll’s Alphabet is the book for you. It deserves to be on the shelf next to your beloved copies of Angela Carter and Shirley Jackson.” —Anton Bogomazov, Politics and Prose “This doll’s eye view is a total delight and surveys a world awash with shadowy wit and exquisite collisions of beauty and the grotesque.” —Helen Oyeyemi, author of Boy, Snow, Bird “Down to its most particular details, The Doll’s Alphabet creates an individual world—a landscape I have never encountered before, which now feels like it was waiting to be captured, and waiting to captivate, all along.” —Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be? “Marvellous. Grudova understands that the best writing has to pull off the hardest aesthetic trick—it has to be both memorable and fleeting.” —Deborah Levy, author of Hot Milk “Imagine a long-suffering, unnamed wife of a mid-century academic who transcribes his research on a chitinous black typewriter. If that typewriter could dream, these stories are the deadpan nightmares it would dream.” —Rachel Schneck, Harvard Book Store “If dystopian lit infused with ideas of gender dynamics feeds your imagination, then this is for you.” —American Microreviews