The book was inspired by the author's decades long obsession with both the 1942 and the 1982 versions of Cat People. If you haven't seen the films, the author suggests you do so immediately, in whichever order you prefer. In addition, the author would also like to acknowledge a debt to both Laird Hunt's The House in the Dark of the Woods, whose title he had fun riffing on throughout the novel, and Olga Ravn's My Work, which gave the author courage to play. Finally, the line on page 205 attributed to Irena that says, "A free woman in an unfree society will become a monster," comes from Angela Carter's The Sadeian Woman and the Ideology of Pornography.
"Peter Grandbois is quickly building an impressive reputation for what I think of as "humanized horror" . . . It's insightful storytelling at its most insidious . . . the author is only growing more confident and capable, wielding sci-fi tropes like blades to cut to the heart of our doubts and fears."
San Francisco Book Review
"Grandbois makes a case for a newer, better understanding of monsters. He brings them from the far, unexplored edges of the map and sets them directly in front of you in order to show that the monster's most frightening quality is his own fear. . . Grandbois shows us that the truth is indeed out there, but it's even farther, darker, and more complicated than we might have first imagined."
Los Angeles Review of Books
"Eerie stories harkening back to the grand old tales of The Twilight Zone will thrill as they entertain...the writing is so good that it goes beyond genre."
Foreword Reviews
"Extraordinary characters in ordinary situations prompt wry philosophical speculations about everyday life and longings in this pair of novellas laced with tropes from sci-fi B-movies."
Publisher's Weekly
"If you ever doubted that monsters (and movie stars) have rich inner lives, doubt no more. Let Peter Grandbois be your guide to the wounded heart (or some extra-terrestrial equivalent) of every alien being on a rampage. Full of wit, verve, and imagination. And Things. And Blobs."
Karen Joy Fowler, Pen/Faulkner and World Fantasy Award winning author
"The monsters Peter Grandbois gives us here aren't just painfully wonderfully human, they're each of us, they're all of us. After reading this, you'll see that you've had scales all along."
Stephen Graham Jones, author of The Only Good Indian
"In this double feature, Grandbois peels back the scrim of the B-movie to reveal the wounded figures lurking behind, figures that cast shadows that seem from one angle monstrous but from another all too human. At once playful and painful--you'll never look at B horror in the same way again.
Brian Evenson, author of Windeye and Immobility