In the story “Queen,” the unnamed character is separated by the reality outside, “as if everywhere I go I am separated from what I see.” Time and space are reordered, disordered, almost dissolved. In the short story “Words Come to Me,” the character explicitly states the theme of Creature: “I am trying to show the mind.” Whatever there is of a story line, it is bound within a reality of the mind’s inquiry into itself. More mood than logic, more feeling than plot, Cain’s stories override chronological time and slip into an interrogation of mind to exploit the multiple meanings hidden therein. Stylistically, Cain absolves the beginning, middle, and end of linear narration and chooses instead a non-sequential narrative that defies the literary formalities of time and space. This is the way it is with Creature, her collection of fourteen stories: elusive, introspective, intuitive. IndieboundThe mind-or body or self-is central to Amina Cain’s storytelling.
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