The Tarantula's Parlor

Misers and malcontents populate the 32 short but pungent stories that make up this 1894 collection of contes cruels getting its first English translation. In the title tale, an incompetent poet bludgeons a listener at gunpoint with a marathon reading of his ghastly sonnets. "Let's Be Reasonable!" tells of a sex worker who blackmails one of his former clients into marrying his daughter, and "The Old Man of the House" describes a daughter's ingeniously nasty strategy for eliminating her unwanted father. In "The Tisane," a young man struggles terribly to keep his poker face at home after he accidentally overhears his mother confess to the poisoning death of his father. Bloy's style, as rendered by publisher Stableford, is blunt and caustic, and it perfectly serves the abrupt, poetically just twists of fate that fell his characters. Bloy was a contemporary of Villiers de l'Isle Adam and Guy de Maupassant, and readers who enjoy their sardonic work will find him a kindred spirit. (Oct.)