Title: Lost Animal Club
Author: Kevin A. Couture
Publisher: NeWest Press
Publication Date: September 2016
ISBN: 9781926455662
Synopsis from Goodreads:
In his debut story collection, Kevin A. Couture creates a world where the veneer of humanness stretches thin and often cracks, while burdened characters take on a variety of beast-like traits. In his desperate survival plan, a pre-teen “rescues” dogs in order to sell them back to their well-off owners. A hare-like marathon pacesetter reflects on the pace she sets, for others and for herself, both on and off the race route. A man confronts his drive for alcohol and the deadly and isolating consequences that leave him to risk his last scrap of control. And two kids, for different reasons, execute their plan to capture a bear cub.
What an intense short story collection from author Kevin A. Couture. As a debit, this collection packs a punch–it’s strong, unexpected, and fiercely moving. The stories are full of emotions of fear, strength, desperation, confusion, survival–those really nitty gritty human emotions that shape and drive us. These emotions are what makes us imperfect and so deeply flawed. Couture faces dark and often disturbing themes head on in a way that is artful and masterful. These are stories to make you think, as well as to question, what it truly means to be human, especially in the context of interacting with others. Who are we as we relate to those around us?
These stories stuck with me, so consuming that they infiltrated my dreams in an unexpected way. Days, or even a week, after reading these stories, I found myself remembering them and sinking into them and questioning if it was something I’d come up with in my own head, before remembering that no, it was a story that is still dancing through my mind. I found Couture to be so startling and so unpredictable. I’m excited to see what else he has to offer.
Worn Pages and Ink 