The Thing in the Forest (Storycuts)

Oct 3, 2024 11:23 PM

Author:A. S. Byatt

Leaves rustle underfoot in a dark wood: two little girls, extracted from their homes in wartime London, encounter something terrifying in a forest. Later when they meet as grown women, they realise the experience has coloured their lives. A dark tale about the nature of stories themselves.

Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was originally published in the collection Little Black Book of Stories.

Reviews

By turns nauseating, darkly funny and brutally graphic

—— Observer

A triumph... A novel of exceptional originality... Wonderful... A remarkable book, the most original work of fiction this year

—— Guardian

An immensely skilful writer

—— Daily Telegraph

Deeply satirical, brutal and provocative, Haunted is harshly compulsive, eye-bleeding stuff

—— I-D

I laughed until my ribs ached

—— Simon Shaw , Daily Mail

One of the most popular novelists in the world...his fiction hits a nerve... Haunted breaks new ground

—— Observer

Tóibín's deceptively straightforward style continues to manage somehow to encompass both lucidity and ambiguity, precision and poetry

—— Irish Times

Exquisite

—— Metro, Fiction of the Week

These stories are always intensely interesting and sometimes profoundly provocative

—— Irish Independent

Perfect; and as good as the best of William Trevor, than which there can be no higher praise

—— Scotsman

A blinding display of mischievous wit and excruciating humour

—— Uncut

One of the greatest short story writers alive

—— Ben Rice

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