How the Ceremony Ends/The Water Demon (Storycuts)

Oct 31, 2024 9:22 AM

Author:Su Tong,Howard Goldblatt

In 'How the Ceremony Ends', it was last winter that the folklorist paid his visit to the village of Eight Pines. He wanted to collect folk tales and customs, to re-enact the ceremonies of life and death that only old men still remember. But somehow he managed to provoke the villagers.

In 'The Water Demon', at the beginning, no-one noticed the little girl on the bridge. No-one knew what she was doing; she just stood and watched. She would call out loudly, 'Here comes the water demon! Get out of the water or he will get you by the feet!' and tear away out of sight. Then, one day, there was no little girl on the bridge.

Part of the Storycuts series, these two short stories were previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.

Reviews

One of our truly essential new writers

—— GQ

Ross is the kind of writer who gets into his often-dysfunctional characters' heads with ease and inhabits them with compassion, giving them a sense of vulnerability... His prose has a pleasing ease to it, without being easy - there's an edge to the worlds he creates that rewards closer reading and prevents sentimentality or predictability. Definitely one to watch

—— Lesley McDowell , The Herald

If you like short stories with a sharp twist in the tale, Adam Ross' astringent collection will be perfectly to your taste

—— Daily Mail

Witty and well-shaped short-story collection... Ross charts the progress of his characters' disillusionment with a compelling mixture of sympathy and ironic detachment

—— Nick Rennison , Sunday Times

Ross is a gifted writer with a soft spot for the kind of stop - you - in - your - tracks twists that will have readers dropping their cups of tea, slow-mo, into their laps

—— Alice Wylie , Scotland on Sunday

Vivid depictions of modern anxiety and a lament to humankind's waning attachment to commitment, deftly told by one of the most accomplished new writers working in the US today

—— Yasmin Sulaiman , The List

Ten years ago the American short story was in decline. Now it is once again a vital genre

—— Ruth Franklin , Prospect

Distinctive, surreal and intelligent

—— Antonia Charlesworth , Big Issue in the North

Sublimely irresistible

—— Tim Samuels , theholbornmag.com

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