Luke O'Neil

A Creature Wanting Form is a bleakly funny work of fiction from a journalist widely celebrated for his wry, mordant take on life.

Filtered through the lens of a writer and characters who are horrified by the earth’s looming mortality, and their own, but still compelled to carry on, O’Neil interweaves science fiction, allegory, fables, poetry, and reflections on the deeply grounded indignities of modern life. In these pages, climate catastrophe lurks on the horizon; animals voraciously devour each other; your parents only call to tell you who from home has just died; and you want to go for a swim, but there’s a shark in the pool.

In short, A Creature Wanting Form is a book for anyone trying to survive with a shred of humanity in the bleak alienation of America, 2023.

Fictions

A Creature Wanting Form

Brett Seybert

I can't believe all these animals we have are real and we just take it for granted I said before drinking half of my glass. Growing up our parents tell us there's no such thing as monsters so we'll go to sleep but a bear is a monster and a moose is a monster and a bird is a monster too. Every bird in the world would rip your head off if it were somewhat larger and you were somewhat slower.

Imagine if whales didn't exist and then one showed up out of nowhere? We'd never stop talking about it Joe said. We would never get over it.

It's probably no coincidence that the most famous novel ever written was about how fucked up a guy got after knowing about one particularly angry whale.

It's just that we get used to the things that are scary Joe said. The real action is in novelty.

I thought instead of paying a stranger to listen to us talk about our childhoods and our disappointments and fathers and so on once a week we should all have a roster of people who once knew us rotate into town to serve the same purpose. Only with a more solid origin then takes yoL by anyth Som appearec throw it base to work with.

A Creature Wanting Form quotes

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