Jeffrey Ford is writing your dreams. Maybe not the dreams about people you know, maybe not the dreams where everything’s relatively mundane, but those dreams where things are just off enough, the dreams where the internal logic makes perfect sense but things are wildly surreal, the dreams where things are always vaguely sinister even when everything seems gentle and relatively bright. Over the course of nine novels, several novellas, and dozens of short stories, Ford has written everything from a manticore that eats people out of existence stalking the streets of New York City to a science fiction author trapped on a rocket ship in outer space to strange forces lurking beneath a pleasant suburban neighborhood in summer. With the UK release this year of the lavish The Best of Jeffrey Ford collection, which compiles some of his best short stories, and his new novella Out of Body hitting the shelves this month, we decided we’d look back and offer a (highly opinionated) guide to his shorter fiction, arranged in order of accessibility.
