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DAZZLING THE GODS is the latest short story collection from Tom Vowler. A brother returns to Dublin from exile to stir up the past. A macabre performance in the bowels of a Parisian museum must be seen to be believed. Lovers torn apart by heroin confront their loss in wildly divergent ways. A disabled husband struggles with the permission he has bestowed. A credulous lover finally faces the crimes of her partner. A father hopes his son never tires of their pilgrimage. And a Gazan widower observes his daughter blossoming amid the carnage of war. 13 stories to delight and unsettle you. Read the Irish Times review here. Click book to order from Amazon. (Better still, pop into your local indie.) |
Shortlisted for an International Rubery Book Award 2019
Vowler draws you into one kind of world, and with a sudden, elegant unfurling of a conceit, or a metaphor made eerily literal, transports us somewhere else, our preconceptions undone and our certainties vanished. His writing is close and meticulous, the better to reveal to us the uncanny and dreamlike vistas of his stories.
COLIN BARRETT
Vowler’s stories, with their beautiful and assured prose, intrigue, delight and challenge all at once.
His vivid, powerful images continued to haunt me long after I’d finished reading.
DANIELLE MCLAUGHLIN
These stories are intelligent, wry, intricate, and very well told. Vowler’s gift is to lull with gorgeous language and, once the reader is soporifically sated on beautiful words, he gut-punches with things stark, shocking and original.
He is a writer for our times.
NUALA O’CONNOR
I'm an admirer of Vowler's short stories.
ALISON MOORE
Dazzling the Gods is an intense, lyrical read, full of intriguing set ups and unexpected encounters. These are stories to be devoured, savoured and digested, and like the very best writing, they will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading.
A truly accomplished collection, touching and evocative.
ELIZABETH HAYNES
Vowler's characters live with a heightened sensitivity, as if in the wake of some disaster.
LUKE KENNARD
I could recognise a Tom Vowler sentence anywhere.
ZOE LAMBERT