This Book Will Change Your Life - How To Carry Bigfoot Home by the Chris Tarry.

Can somthing be heartbreaking, yet delightful? Why not? But what should we call that? Which is not to say that everything requires a label, but to name it, is to know it, and to know it makes it something. But does Chris Tarry the author of the heartbreaking, yet delightful short story collection How To Carry Bigfoot Home even care about any of that. Why should he? That's our job. His job is to write about stay-at-home fathers who kill dragons, sea monsters who offer the chance at redemption and academic programs that ensure mystical beasts such as Bigfoot can lend university positions. And isn't that enough? It is, when Tarry writes likes this, and pulls off the trick of making us smile, while also writing some of the saddest shit we've read in some time. Tarry does something else quite lovely as well as we spend our time wallowing in monsters and folk lore, he sneaks in some more straight forward, or realistic joints, hence keeping the reader on our toes. And kudos for pulling that off Chris Tarry. He also makes a series of subtle comments about manhood, and what it looks like when there is not work, and our expectations are not met, and we have to ask ourselves if this is enough, whether it's taking care of our kids, or honest work. Especially when in so many ways the world doesn't care. Because if no one cares, does any of it it even matter? We don't know if Tarry answers these questions, but he poses them, delightfully, and heartbreakingly, and how can we ask for more than that?