Vanilla Bright Like Eminem

In the title story, 'Vanilla Bright Like Eminem," a seemingly uneventful family train ride down through the Scottish Highlands to Inverness also happens to the moment of purest joy in a fathers life. In "Flesh Made of Flesh," a Victorian industrialist with a fascination for taxidermy sets out to literally stuff members of the lower orders and ends up making an exhibit of himself. In "Mouse," a young computer geek is forced to come out hiding and interact with the girl from downstairs, who turns out to be equally obsessed with a New Age religion. In "Fitness," a dictator must trust his life to the woman doctor whose husband and children he has imprisoned. In "The Smallness of Action," a distressed mother "breaks" her baby in increasingly more severe ways, while her husband remains oblivious. In "Explaining Coconuts," a woman erotically demonstrates the benefits of the coconut for an audience of clammy executives. In "Serious Swimmers," a young mother recovering from heroin addiction takes her son on a supervised outing to the local swimming pool.

From cybergeek to dictator, young child to 19th-century industrialist, the stories in VANILLA BRIGHT LIKE EMINEM all touch on the most basic of human emotion in settings that are both fantastic and mundane. Insightful, wise, and always entertaining, this is a book by a writer at the height of his powers.

Michel Faber is not only a master storyteller but a daring innovator as well. Here are the pitch-perfect prose, indelible characterizations, and deep empathy for which he has been highly acclaimed. Here also is a satirical streak that depicts individuals at uncanny and all-too-familiar turning points in their lives. The alienated find sanctuary in "The Safehouse," their histories and diagnoses written like endless ads on their T-shirts. In "Andy Comes Back," a man awakens after a five-year coma, only to flee his home. In "The Eyes of the Soul," perpetual televised beauty replaces the derelict view from a suburban picture window. In "Finesse," a dictator holds his surgeon’s family hostage to the outcome of a risky operation. These sixteen stories move from unspeakable sadness through moments of exquisitely distilled happiness.

The Safehouse 1

Andy Comes Back 27

The Eyes of the Soul 37

Serious Swimmers 49

Explaining Coconuts 61

Finesse 77

Flesh Remains Flesh 97

Less than Perfect 111

A Hole with Two Ends 127

The Smallness of the Action 139

All Black 153

Mouse 171

Someone to Kiss It Better 193

Beyond Pain 209

Tabitha Warren 227

Vanilla Bright like Eminem 239