Hopeful monsters

Home becomes fraught, reality a nightmare as acclaimed novelist Hiromi Goto weaves her characters through tales of domestic crises and cultural dissonance in her first book with Arsenal Pulp Press. The title of Hopeful Monsters refers to genetically abnormal organisms that naturally adapt to their environments. In Hiromi Goto's subtle, devastating stories, the hopeful monsters in question are women who will not be tethered by familial duty or the ghosts of their past. They are the walking wounded – a visiting grandfather who cannot abide his "foreign" grandchildren; a mother who is terrified by her newborn who bears a tail; a "stinky girl" who studies the human condition in a shopping mall. But their wills are a force of nature unto themselves, and their struggles are imbued with the light of myth and magic-realism. Alternately poignant and noisy, these stories establish Hiromi Goto's gift for short fiction that is as shining as her acclaimed novels.