The Slantwise Histories

Alix E. Harrow spins tales never-told and seen just outside the periphery of reality; these hauntingly resonant and defiant stories leap from the page and dance in and out of a history that never was (but could have been) and into a future startlingly like our own.

Before I was a liar I was a historian, which is a kind of storyteller who doesn’t make any money and likes footnotes.

These are stories about the past as it wasn’t quite, but might have been, from ancient battlefields all the way up through roadside attractions off I-70. They’re about the people caught in the mean jaws of history: the women and workers, the soldiers and mothers, everyone shoved into the margins of the world.

But these aren’t singular tragedies—these are the stories of the ones that got away. The ones who defected and dissented, who broke the rules, who ran and tossed a match behind them. Slantwise Histories and Other Stories collects the best-known short fiction of Alix E. Harrow, including "A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies", "The Six Deaths of the Saint", "The Knight and the Butcherbird", "The Long Way Up", "Roadside Attraction", "Mr. Death", "The Ransom of Miss Coraline Connelly", "The Sycamore and the Sybil", "Do Not Look Back, My Lion", "The Whisper in the Weld", "Dustbaby", and four all-new short stories.

A new fantastical collection of stories about tricksters and ghosts, magics ordinary and spectacular. In the tradition of Angela Carter, Anne Sexton, and Carmen Maria Machado.

Endorsements

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Everlasting and Starling House.

Includes the Hugo Award–winning story "A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies".