RaveForeword ReviewsWhitney Collins’s layered short story collection Big Bad concerns the dark impulses that lurk within ... Hints of sexual frustration, prolonged heartache, and repressed emotion run throughout ... Playful titles that are imbued with double meanings are followed by startling openings that prompt questions from the audience. These lay the groundwork for clever metaphors, which in turn foster deeper insights. Elements of magical realism result in refreshing and hilarious angles on human foibles. Precise details help to convey the stories’ amusing, lingering themes ... Not a word is wasted in Big Bad, an unusual and masterful collection of short stories.
Alonso Cueto, Trans. by Frank Wynne and Jessie Mendez Sayer
RaveForeword Reviews... lyrical ... The story unfolds in layers, moving smoothly back and forth in time ... Ángel consults unexpected guides...each with a unique life philosophy and portrayed with complexity and empathy ... Throughout, details capture the essences of places and people. Cueto’s scenes and descriptions are tactile and immediate, conveying subtext and deeper meaning. Metaphors set a mood that supports the story’s overarching themes of trauma, guilt, and the idea that we are forever bound to people we harm and who harm us, even if that harm is unintended. Spare language and well-placed observations result in interludes for absorbing the deeper implications of situations, adding tension and emotional texture. A series of quiet moments build to a crescendo and emotional catharsis ... a powerful, multilayered novel that meditates on life and death, pain and suffering.
