|a The daughter cells - The thankless child - Fear not: an incident log - The six boy-coffins - The rabbit - The merry spinster - The wedding party - Some of us had been threatening our friend Mr.

|a New York : |b Holt Paperbacks/Henry Holt and Company, |c 2018. The result is an absolute delight.|a The merry spinster : |b tales of everyday horror / |c Mallory Ortberg. It’s like both of them sat next to each other in THE MERRY SPINSTER and gossiped away. 'Mallory Ortberg has the sloe gin wit of Dorothy Parker and the soul of a Classics nerd. John Scalzi, New York Times bestselling author of Lock In and Redshirts Alexander Chee, author of Edinburgh and The Queen of the Night I don't know if these stories are for bedtimes, but they are for us.' If fairy tales are ways to describe the rules we don't dare put down on paper, in her hands they become ways to challenge those, or even to write new rules. There are uncanny slivers of delight and recognition mixed here with the wit we all love Ortberg for, but here that wit is wielded with new force. 'The secret to THE MERRY SPINSTER, I think, is that she never wanted to be your wicked stepmother-she was too busy. Charlie Jane Anders, author of All the Birds in the Sky The Merry Spinster will ruin your most-loved fables, in the best possible way.' 'Mallory Ortberg has a voracious appetite for poison apples, and a genius for finding the places in fairyland where all the bodies are buried. Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties: Stories I’ve never read anything quite like them, and I bet, Dear Reader, that you haven’t either.' between Terry Pratchett’s satirical jocularity and Angela Carter’s sinister, shrewd storytelling, and the result is gorgeous, unsettling, splenic, cruel, and wickedly smart. Mallory Ortberg has created a Frankenstein’s monster of familiar narratives. 'Dear Reader: It would, truthfully, be simplest to call the stories in THE MERRY SPINSTER ‘retellings,’ but that word does not adequately capture their dark alchemy. As a fantasist and short story writer, Mallory Ortberg is without peer.' 'A collection of stories delectable, formidable, and nimble. 1 New York Times bestselling author of Carry On

Ortberg bloodily turns familiar tales inside out.' 'Dark and dreadful and persistently clever. 'Ortberg’s sly, scathing renditions.strike directly at the heart.The book brings the shock of the new and the shock of recognition into play at the same time it’s a tour de force of skill, daring, and hard-earned bravura.' 'A wholly satisfying blend of silliness, feminist critique, and deft prose makes this a collection of bedtime stories that will keep you up at night for all the right reasons.'

The Merry Spinster by Daniel M. Lavery