The irony is that while Cain’s characters are unique in the way they feel intensely alive, she achieves this by allowing them to succumb to the pleasures of retreating to a place that can be found only inside a work of art. Perhaps the most unusual thing about “Creature” is that so many of its protagonists are readers. Her characters converse with confidants, talk to strangers and read deeply. I work in a bookstore, so this isn’t a good quality.” My memory is bad, and I’m ashamed of what I think about literature - I can only open up to a few people in this way. Just a wild kind of lostness that’s as alluring as it is unsettling.Ĭain whisks the reader into these inward-looking scenes but doesn’t wallow in them, and she engages us directly with candid confessions and sly humor: “Sometimes I forget the names of books, the ones I like the most. There are no stakes, no rising action, no arc. I knew I would never be able to talk to anyone about it.” “I spent a whole day reading a book in my kitchen. Rather, the intimate way in which Cain gradually exposes her characters makes it feel as though we are haunting them. The go-to cliché would be to say they are in some way haunted, but that’s not quite right. In 14 prose pieces - it would be a mistake to call them “stories” because the label underscores what’s not there - Cain presents a series of female characters at loose ends.
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