I fell in love with Kelly Link’s writing from the first page of the first story in Stranger Things Happen. That was some years ago, but I go back to the book often, and often I find I’ve misremembered something, even as I fall in love with the stories again. I have even had the just-for-a-second delusion, faster than reason, that Link has snuck into my home and rewritten stories to dazzle me differently this time, because that’s just the sort of thing she’d do. She’s funny and bookish, charming and ghoulish, original even when she’s referential. She’s one of those writers I always tell people about, but worry how to describe her: yes, she writes ghost stories and fantasy, but not really. But, really, she does: aficionados of both should love her, but so should people who never stray from the strictest lit-fic. I admire imagination and craft, in equal measure. Link is one of the very few who have both in seemingly limitless quantity.
Read an excerpt from Stranger Things Happen.
More Best Fiction of the Millennium (So Far)
Best of the Millennium, Pros Versus Readers
