I am a big fan of short stories. Kathryn Scanlan’s short, experimental fictions decontextualize, shock, and remain linguistically inventive. They were consistently unsettling in a way I've not experienced in short stories before. Maybe because they're so visceral. The descriptive technique used is bare bones, essential, truthful, and unsweetened. To give one clear example Scanlan used 'burned' instead of 'cremated'. The language is intentionally jarring and forced me to question the situation I was interpreting. The stories are very short, only a couple of pages each on average.

There are clear themes of the animal self (humanity vs barbarism), the nature of animals other to humans, compassion, or lack of it, and animal cruelty. Yes I'm vegan and abhor animal cruelty, but these stories were much easier to stomach than Moby Dick. I think because the language used isn't morally loaded in any way, it's merely descriptive. The moral implications are left to the reader to interpret.

I'm also absolutely delighted to see that this shot stories collection is being sold at the  Francis Bacon exhibition "Man and Beast" at the Royal Academy of Arts 2022. I think it's a perfect pairing. Scanlan’s visceral artwork perfectly reflects that of Bacon's. 

My favourites of the Dominant Animal collection:

The candidate
Power tools
Small pink female
Shh
The imprecation 
Dear sirs 
BJ
Salad days
Design for a carpet
Vagrants 
Now this 
The rescued man 
Lemons