The Sea Beast Takes a Lover

Bol Partner

“Andreasen breathes new life into familiar tropes via the ingenuity of his storytelling.... the refreshing stories in this debut collection are full of delicious detours.” –Publisher's WeeklyDazzling and delightful, with its feet only slightly tethered to the world we know, The Sea Beast Takes A Lover explores family, faith, and longing through a kaleidoscope of surreal landscapes and spellbinding characters.Andreasen's stories unfold in wildly inventive worlds that invite the supernatural into our familiar routines: in "Bodies in Space," an extramarital affair is rudely interrupted by an alien abduction, while in "Blunderbuss." a third-grade class takes an ill-advised field trip to a floundering time travel institute. "Jenny" follows a reluctant caretaker's attempts to manage his kind-hearted headless sister, and in the title story, a group of sailors find their ship commandeered by an aggressively lovestruck kraken.Romping through the fantastic with bighearted ease, these stories uncover a universal yearning for connection in seldom-explored spaces, revealing that aliens can help us think about loss, that time travel is just another way to talk about guilt, and that sea monsters may have a thing or two to teach us about love.With a captivating new voice from an immensely talented storyteller, The Sea Beast Takes a Lover uses the odd, the extraordinary, and the miraculous to expose us at our most profoundly and hilariously human.

Bol

An astonishing fiction debut from a UC Irvine MFA graduate and recent contributor to The New Yorker. Bewitching and playful, with its feet only slightly tethered to the world we know, The Sea Beast Takes a Lover explores hope, love, and loss across a series of surreal landscapes and wild metamorphoses. Just because Jenny was born without a head doesn't mean she isn't still annoying to her older brother, and just because the Man of the Future's carefully planned extramarital affair ends in alien abduction and network fame doesn't mean he can't still pine for his absent wife. Romping through the fantastic with big-hearted ease, these stories cut to the core of what it means to navigate family, faith, and longing, whether in the form of a lovesick kraken slowly dragging a ship of sailors into the sea, a small town euthanizing its grandfathers in a time-honored ritual, or a third-grade field trip learning that time travel is even more wondrous--and more perilous--than they might imagine. Andreasen's stories are simultaneously daring and deeply familiar, unfolding in wildly inventive worlds that convey our common yearning for connection and understanding. With a captivating new voice from an incredible author, The Sea Beast Takes a Lover uses the supernatural and extraordinary to expose us at our most human.