What I Didn't See

"Gripping from the start.... We are can never be sure where we are or what each page might bring. This is eclectic approach to a collection is exciting, and steers us away from the safer approach that many other collections take. "--"The Short Review" "[Fowler] refuses to engage fantastic elements in an expected way, often confining them to the edges of a story, leaving the choice of how real a character's perception is to the reader. Her work reflects how strange and unpredictable life is, how difficult-perhaps impossible-to fully understand."--Gwenda Bond, "Subterranean Online" "Because of this range and because of the plain high literary quality of so many of its stories, "What I Didn't See" would provide an excellent introduction to Fowler's work if you've somehow managed to remain unacquainted with it."--"Strange Horizons" "An exceptionally versatile author . . . Fowler has "the best possible combination of imagination and pragmatism," as she applies unique narratives into carefully crafted structures."--"St. Louis Post-Dispatch" "In all these stories, Fowler ("Sarah Canary," "The Jane Austen Book Club") delights in luring her readers from the walks of ordinary life into darker, more fantastical realms. There, as one of her characters remarks, "Your eyes no longer impose any limit on the things you can see." . . . Fowler's closing story, "King Rat," is a masterpiece. Reading more like a personal essay than fiction, it pays eloquent tribute to "the two men I credit with making me a writer." Here's a volume that serves as a fine introduction to Fowler, if you haven't come across her before--and one that will deeply satisfy fans who've been with her from the beginning."--"Seattle Times" "That rare writer who can match the power of her novels with the power of her short stories. She works in the world of myth with great ease. We feel, reading her stories, that we are in our world, but some portion of it that connects vitally wi