The Fool and Other Moral Tales

Reviews

"Serre’s language is tight and fabulist, a slim and sensuous fairy tale that reads like something born from an orgy between Charles Perrault, Shirley Jackson, and Angela Carter." — Full Stop

"In three mysterious tales, Serre explores the moral implications of self-destructive impulses, storytelling, and sexual taboo. Serre, one of France's finest fabulists, returns in full force in this strange, beguiling collection about the perils of desire in all its forms." — Kirkus

"Three wild novellas—tied together with dream logic, each of these stories plumbs the depths of desire, morality, and our willingness to go on an unpredictable ride." — Katie Yee, LitHub

"Hypnotic, enchanting." — Publishers Weekly

"Drawing on fairy tales and psychoanalysis, pornography and poststructuralism, Serre constructs stunning and searing stories. Dreamy and deeply sexual." — Publishers Weekly (starred)

"Serre’s collection speaks bravely, poignantly and perversely to the hazards of alienation—from one’s self, from those around you—while also illuminating the blessings and curses, the gifts and sacrifices, of being called to dwell in the gauzy world of stories." — John Biscello, Riot Material

""With its psychological reality infused with fabulism, Serre’s fiction seems to have invented its own genre of literature. The Fool & Other Moral Tales is an impeccable collection."" — Ankita Chakraborty, The New York Times

"Genuinely original—and, often, very quietly so. Prim and racy, seriously weird and seriously excellent—The Governesses is not a treatise but an aria, and one delivered with perfect pitch." — Parul Sehgal, The New York Times