Jeffrey Ford Books in Order

At the Carnival of the Dead, a young woman seeks forgiveness from the spirit of the inventor she accidentally killed. As Scarfinati’s strange life unfolds, his mysterious powers and interference in other lives raise increasingly disturbing questions.

Physiognomist Cley serves a ruler who controls citizens by reading their bodies and faces. Sent to a remote mining town to find a fruit granting immortality, he encounters a woman whose secrets threaten his faith in the entire system.

Seeking atonement after the Well-Built City’s destruction, Cley works as a healer until a sleeping sickness strikes his village. To save its inhabitants, he must enter the memories of the tyrant responsible and search a dangerous inner world for a cure.

Former physiognomist Cley journeys into a sentient wilderness with his dog, seeking a woman he once gravely harmed. Demons, wraiths and strange responsibilities confront him as he tries to reckon with his past beyond the ruined Well-Built City.

A boy tries to animate a figure made from sticks and stones, a man searches for a cursed Kafka book, and a king’s grief threatens his realm. These stories bring human loneliness and longing into encounters with the impossible.

In 1893 New York, portraitist Piero Piambo accepts an unusual commission from wealthy Mrs. Charbuque. He may question his client but never see her, forcing him to reconstruct her appearance through stories that draw him into an increasingly disturbing mystery.

Sheltered by his human parents, the minotaur Belius leaves home to explore the mysterious Wider World. Accompanied by an owl and a tortoise, he searches for a fuller life through a journey that tests his understanding of himself.

During the Depression, teenage Diego helps con man Thomas Schell stage séances for wealthy New Yorkers. When Schell appears to see a missing girl’s spirit, their search for her draws them beyond familiar trickery into dangerous secrets and experiments.

Two brothers investigate disturbances in their Long Island neighbourhood during the 1960s. As disappearances and a mysterious prowler threaten their childhood world, changes their younger sister makes to a model town seem to anticipate events outside their home.

Twenty stories move among mad scientists, vampires, lost souls and dangerous secrets. Drawing together fantasy, horror, mystery and science fiction, Jeffrey Ford explores strange worlds and unsettling encounters in which familiar desires lead characters toward unexpected dangers.

Three friends spend their college holiday excavating an abandoned mansion’s outhouse and uncover a horned child’s skeleton. Their discovery awakens a relentless creature, turning a drunken adventure into a struggle to protect themselves and the people they love.

Having survived his encounter with the white whale, Captain Ahab discovers that reports of his death drove his family away. A New York newspaperman helps him search for them in exchange for the extraordinary story of his survival.

After failing to save a young woman from murder, librarian Owen begins leaving his body during sleep. His journeys expose hidden dangers in his hometown, including a long-lived serial killer capable of following him into the dream world.

Ordinary routines conceal unsettling intrusions in these stories: a light in an empty house, a child drawn toward a drainage tunnel, and an angel entangled with academic ambition. Everyday landscapes open onto dangers both outside people and within them.

A travelling dance exhibition, a hunt across a sun-scorched landscape and a monster pursuit in a divided America turn familiar worlds strange. These stories explore obsession, transformation and wonder through encounters that unsettle the boundaries of ordinary life.

Emily Dickinson rides with Death, neighbours attend a girl’s exorcism, and a country witch protects abandoned children. Thirteen stories uncover unsettling forces beneath everyday life, mixing supernatural encounters with the fears, cruelties and unexpected compassion of ordinary people.

A town selects residents to drink a mysterious deathberry intoxicant, while people overwhelmed by life sink into an underwater existence. These stories transform familiar pressures and desires into strange encounters involving secret societies, impossible weather and otherworldly love.

A composer discovers a woman through his unusual sensory perceptions, while fairies inhabit sandcastles threatened by the tide. These stories combine ordinary lives with impossible encounters, exploring memory, longing and the fragile worlds people construct around themselves.