Paperback Perils: Trigger Warning

Title: Trigger Warnings
Author: Neil Gaiman
Publication Date: 20015
Publishing House: HarperCollins

Trigger Warning is different than any other book I have reviewed on this blog so far. It is as the title says, “Short Fictions and Disturbances.” The stories in these pages all have some unsettling aspect. Sometimes the story ends well for someone but they all end badly for at least one other.

Gaiman is one of the few authors that I make a point to read the introduction for.  This introduction gives us the opportunity to understand the authorial intent behind his writing. This line from said intro sums things up nicely:

I wondered….whether one day, people would but a trigger warning on my fiction. I wondered whether or not the would be justified in doing it. And then I decided to do it first.”

I don’t necessarily have a favorite out of these short stories but a couple of them did stick with me thought. The first was “The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains…” I think this short story grabbed me because it gives the impression that it is about one thing: something  tangible, gold. But the truth when it comes is so much better and worse. Better because it is not something as predictable as monetary wealth and worse because, well to find out I’ll let you read it but it has to do with love.

The other story that stuck with me was Black Dog. The main character in this short fiction is Shadow from American Gods, this story takes place after the events of American Gods. Shadow is traveling and fate loves to wrap him up with the mysterious, myths, and death.

Trigger Warning is a fairly short read and a quick one but that doesn’t mean that it does hit you sometimes – as the author intended it should. If you have read this book I would love to know what you think about it or about Gaiman’s writing in general. Have a great Monday.