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Article: A.S. Byatt's tales will give you the creeps.
- Article from:
- San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, CA)
- Article date:
- May 5, 2004
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 San Jose Mercury News. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Charles Matthews
``Little Black Book of Stories'' by A.S. Byatt; Knopf ($21)
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Look at _ no, better yet, listen to _ the way this story begins:
"There were once two little girls who saw, or believed they saw, a thing in a forest."
How can you not read that story? As that sentence delicately steps from naive to sinister, it evokes the shivery delights of campfire tales.
Which is precisely what A.S. Byatt intends it to do. The first of the five stories in her slim but extraordinary new collection, "Little Black Book of Stories," "The Thing in the Forest" cycles through several modes _ once-upon-a-time fable, ...