Dinosaurs on Other Planets: Stories

For fans of Alice Munro, Anne Enright, and William Trevor comes a stunning debut collection from a deeply original writer and observer of love, betrayal, and turning points in ordinary peoples’ lives.
 
In a raw seacoast cabin, a young woman watches her boyfriend go out with his brother, late one night, on a mysterious job she realizes she isn’t supposed to know about. A man gets a call at work from his sister-in-law, saying that his wife and his daughter never made it to nursery school that day. A mother learns that her teenage daughter has told a teacher about problems in her parents’ marriage that were meant to be private—problems the mother herself tries to ignore. McLaughlin conveys these characters so vividly that readers will feel they are experiencing real life. Often the stories turn on a single, fantastic moment of clarity—after which nothing can be the same.
 
Danielle McLaughlin is a writer of unparalleled precision and uncommon imagination. In her deft hands, ordinary people are transformed and surprising truths are suddenly understood.
 
Advance praise for Dinosaurs on Other Planets
 
“This is not a debut in the usual sense, a promise of greater things to come. There is no need to ask what Danielle McLaughlin will do next—she has done it already. This book has arrived. I think it will stay with us for a long time.”—Anne Enright, Man Booker Prize–winning author of The Green Road
 
“Danielle McLaughlin’s stories seethe, beneath elegant prose, with unfamiliar insights and entirely original observations. Only an author who loves what human beings are can so compassionately reveal them in all their flawed, gorgeous contradictions and communicate unmistakable joy while doing so. How glad I am to read this impressive new writer! Her fiction is a gift we need.”—Robin Black, author of Life Drawing

“In McLaughlin's world, the everyday has the same sparkle—or the same devastation—as a glittering galaxy or a war. There is no weakest link in this powerful set of stories—all the characters are given space and time for their stories to build to rich conclusions.” —Kirkus Reviews


From the Hardcover edition.