But You Scared Me the Most: And Other Short Stories
Chicago Review Press, 2016

Category: Fiction
Format: Paperback 224 pp. 5.25 x 8.25 inches
ISBN-10: 1613734751
ISBN-13: 978-1613734759

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About the Book
This collection of twenty-six dark but often humorous short stories features a pantheon of disturbed and disturbing characters, human and otherwise. Many of the stories are modern takes on classic monsters crafted with twisted plots. For example, “Wolfman and Janice” is about a werewolf who is doing the best he can under very trying circumstances. There’s an adolescent vampire-wannabe who is suffering badly: in love for the first time. In one story a grown man wears a Frankenstein mask and lives with his mother watching TV and eating corn chips all day while being afraid of work. Other stories feature characters who seem perfectly normal until they’re alone. Phil, for instance, is never so happy as when he’s with his inflatable girlfriend Vanessa—until she tells him the devastating truth about himself. Elderly Ellen is running out of patience with her dead husband George, who’s turned prankish. More than just standard monster stories, the tales in But You Scared Me the Most reveal the dark heart of human nature.

Review comments by Kirkus:
“…plumbs the depth of domestic horror in these fleeting but beguiling stories about ghosts, murders, monsters and madmen.”
“Clever fables about nightmares both real and imagined.”