Aimee Bender’s Willful Creatures conjures a fantastical world in which authentic love blooms. This is a place where a boy with keys for fingers is a hero, a woman’s children are potatoes, and a little boy with an iron for a head is born to a family of pumpkin heads. With her singular mix of surrealism, musical prose, and keenly felt emotion, Bender once again proves herself to be a masterful chronicler of the human condition.
Willful Creatures
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Book Description
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Fifteen stories bursting with heart and marvel make up this daringly original collection by Bender (The Girl in the Flammable Skirt). Nameless characters lend the tales an allegorical feel and heighten the emotional impact, as in one story's breathlessly cinematic love scene between a seducer (identified only by an expletive, "the mother—") and his prey ("the starlet"). With stories that turn on stark cruelty, Bender deftly forces uncomfortable identification with unsympathetic protagonists who torment the weak: like "Debbieland" 's collective "we" of predatory girls, and the man in "End of the Line" who purchases a miniature man as a pet and tortures him. Elsewhere, she evokes tender relationships with a balance of earthy heartbreak and otherworldly strangeness. In "Dearth," the sudden appearance of seven potato-children forces the solitary protagonist into messy motherhood; in "Ironhead," a pumpkin-headed couple grieves for their dead child, whose heavy head, literally a clothes iron, kills him with its debilitating weight; in "The Leading Man," a boy with key-shaped fingers wishes only to unlock the secret of his father's wartime trauma. Bender's surrealism is never gratuitous in the fantastical yet truthful stories of this singular collection.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Bookmarks Magazine
"Surreal," "bizarre," and "outlandish" appear frequently in descriptions of Bender’s stories, most culled from prestigious literary magazines. Despite their unreal premises, these stories rarely fail to connect with readers emotionally. Her characters are often both disturbed and disturbing. Opinions differ on whether to call Bender a dark writer or a magical realist, but nobody has unkind words for her prose. Some of these tales—fairy tales, even—succeed masterfully; others are weak by comparison, and most reviewers prefer to treat the stories individually, rather than sum up the collection. Readers who suspend their disbelief unwillingly should pass on this one. Those who appreciate fine writing as much as ethereal storytelling will enjoy it greatly.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Aimee Bender's stories are the contemporary descendents of those of the Brothers Grimm, with their surrealism laid on top of human desire and need. In both her previous collection, The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, and this newest one, Willful Creatures, her fiction adopts the tone of fairytales through the straightforward storytelling of the bizarre. Instead of a sausage growing on the end of a nose, Bender gives us potato children and a captive miniature man. Instead of a wicked stepmother, she conjures a collective group of predatory teenage girls. The "willful creatures" of the title take over and change the lives of the people who discover them. While some of these creatures have irons for heads or are made of glass or have keys for fingers, many appear, at least superficially, as ordinary people living routine lives.
One of the most memorable stories is "End of the Line," where a big man buys a little man from a pet shop, keeps him in a cage with a television and sofa, and commits unspeakable cruelties. "The Meeting" starts out like a Talking Heads song of the late 1970s: "The woman he met. He met a woman. This woman was the woman he met." From this staccato, inane beginning, the story develops the theme of ruined expectations and how they can evolve, without warning, into powerful emotions. "Dearth" is the story of a childless woman who discovers a pot of persistent, magical potatoes that grow into children. In "The Case of the Salt and Pepper Shakers," the narrator, a crime investigator, is less concerned with how a husband and wife killed each other at the same moment than he is with the mysterious collection of fourteen salt and pepper shakers he finds in their house.
Readers won't confuse Bender's work with anyone else's. Her inventive plots, coupled with no-nonsense language, result in swiftly told tales. To Bender, contemporary life is as mysterious as words made of xenon, and yet she manages to give us glimpses of raw emotional truth. Staunch realists and literalists might find themselves left cold by Bender's unconventional fiction, but those willing to accept a stark, matter-of-fact surrealism will be enchanted.
One of the most memorable stories is "End of the Line," where a big man buys a little man from a pet shop, keeps him in a cage with a television and sofa, and commits unspeakable cruelties. "The Meeting" starts out like a Talking Heads song of the late 1970s: "The woman he met. He met a woman. This woman was the woman he met." From this staccato, inane beginning, the story develops the theme of ruined expectations and how they can evolve, without warning, into powerful emotions. "Dearth" is the story of a childless woman who discovers a pot of persistent, magical potatoes that grow into children. In "The Case of the Salt and Pepper Shakers," the narrator, a crime investigator, is less concerned with how a husband and wife killed each other at the same moment than he is with the mysterious collection of fourteen salt and pepper shakers he finds in their house.
Readers won't confuse Bender's work with anyone else's. Her inventive plots, coupled with no-nonsense language, result in swiftly told tales. To Bender, contemporary life is as mysterious as words made of xenon, and yet she manages to give us glimpses of raw emotional truth. Staunch realists and literalists might find themselves left cold by Bender's unconventional fiction, but those willing to accept a stark, matter-of-fact surrealism will be enchanted.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This collection is darker than Aimee Bender's first. It contains a few stories in her "signature" fairy tale/magical realist style, including one featuring a family with pumpkin and clothes-iron heads and one about a boy with a hand made of keys (whose destiny unfolds as he discovers which lock fits each). But my favorite here are less twisted with symbolism. "Debbieland" is layered with anger and desire, and she deftly uses the first person plural to reveal just how disconnected the narrator is from herself. "Off" is angry too: it may or may not star the heiress character we met in The Girl In The Flammable Skirt, an idle and beautiful woman partial to inappropriately dressy couture who finds herself in infuriating and embarrassing situations when she tries to elicit attention from men. In "Off" she decides to collect kisses from three men chosen by hair color, and finds herself confronted with the unfinished buisness of her last relationship; by the end of the story this haughty and self-confident woman is reduced to hiding in the coat closet with a pile of coats, hoping that the man she "doesn't love" will come and find her there.
Aimee Bender is still growing and developing as a writer, and this book is a fascinating look into her maturing voice. She's always been adept, original, witty, and strange. Now she's finding her depth. I expect great things to come from her.
Aimee Bender is still growing and developing as a writer, and this book is a fascinating look into her maturing voice. She's always been adept, original, witty, and strange. Now she's finding her depth. I expect great things to come from her.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By Amy Adler
Format:Hardcover
I love the works of Aimee Bender. Willful Creatures proves that Bender does not stale with age, but get better and better and better. I recommend all her works, of course, but I believe Willfucl Creatures to be her best. A MUST READ for all fans of magical realism, stories about relationships and/or heartache, or just good stories in general. An evening spent with Aimee Bender is an evening spent in bliss.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
LOVE LOVE LOVE!
cannot express enough how fun and feeling this book is. want to be in another world for a while? read this!
Published 7 months ago by anais
5.0 out of 5 stars
book girl
Good shape; quick service; everything came in quickly; nice to business with you. good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good.
Published 10 months ago by Lisa C. Coburn
5.0 out of 5 stars
illustrative
My favorite book of short stories (and perhaps of all time), Willful Creature is memorable and heartbreaking, hilarious and nightmarish. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Michelle
4.0 out of 5 stars
Almost as good as Ray Bradbury
I am a huge fan of short stories. Aimee Bender has a talent for creating wonderful characters who, at times, are extroadinarily insightful. Read more
Published on February 13, 2011 by bison lover
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Willful Creatures" meanings with poetry of intent
The metaphor consists of the meaning and can contain many layers of meaning. In her work,anyway,this is true. The little man in the cage made me cry, some. Read more
Published on October 8, 2010 by patricia dorman
5.0 out of 5 stars
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Aimee Bender is mostly likely the best writer ever born. Sometimes she sucks and sometimes she is amazing and sometimes she is inbetween, this is one of the latter, but even her... Read more
Published on August 13, 2010 by Christy Leigh Stewart
4.0 out of 5 stars
Crafted Creatures
Keys for fingers, iron-headed child, potato children, little people for sale. Aimee Bender's short stories are a journey through fantasy.
Published on July 25, 2010 by AndThis
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of my FAVORITE books EVER!!
I've read and reread these stories and they are imaginative and quirky. I've often thought wistfully of the little man story - please publish something new!!
Published on July 23, 2008 by Ida Wanoo
3.0 out of 5 stars
And every story is a metaphor
Intellectually, I admire Bender's skill and style. Her work is vivid and visual. But for me, the everpresent metaphor at the heart of each story becomes tiresome because it's... Read more
Published on November 12, 2007 by Just_Karen
5.0 out of 5 stars
a solid gold gem!
This is a tremendous book. I liked The Girl in the Flammable Skirt very much but this book...it hits a little harder. All of these stories are fantastic. Read more
Published on November 1, 2007 by Arienette Cervantes
