What subterfuge is this? HarperCollins had the great idea to re-issue some classic short story collections in well-designed but inexpensive trade paperbacks and then include a bonus story from a new writer as part of the package.
I’ve just read the bonus story, ‘The Beast of Beddgelert’ by Alex Burrett, in the Melville collection, The Happy Failure.
On the basis of The Beast, reserve your copy of My Goat Ate Its Own Legs by Alex Burrett from Amazon or Powell’s or whomever right now.
“The Beast of Beddgelert” is a demented Welsh folktale of man, woman and dog. Young man on the make does well, becomes a lord and marries the most desirable trophy wife that ancient Wales had on offer. Only he had bonded with his dog first.
It had been man and dog through all of life’s warfare. Now with matrimony and a child on the way, our ageing wolf/dog is banished to a woodshed out back which doesn’t keep off the icy winds.
I felt like a kid again, thinking I had fallen into some old story like The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn. But how did AB work “cheap Frisbees” into a medieval folktale? This is strange stuff. And I wondered if I was meant to identify with the canine.
In the slyness of this story, friends change places….species change places. It’s wicked, wicked fun. Alex Burrett is wicked squared. I am looking forward to My Goat Ate Its Own Legs, pubbing in August from HarperCollins.
-DH
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