In "June Bugs," the monsters are - at least at first blush - the titular insects, which are infesting a rental house that a woman named Martha has moved into after breaking up with her boyfriend, Neil: "The floor was a seething sea of beetles - their color of dried blood, the sheen of their glassy wings like cresting waves - that washed up and over the old front door." Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu The story ends perfectly it's a wistful, gorgeous look at the liminal space between childhood and what comes after. The girls keep their friend's secret for as long as they can, but it's hard to hide too long from protective parents. It's a not-unwelcome development for the girls, who have found themselves on the cusp of adolescent jadedness: "The realm of pretend had only just closed its doors to us, and light still leaked through around the edges … Now we had something to bond us again, a new hidden world." In the collection's second story, "Liddy, First to Fly," Fu follows a group of girls who are thrown for a loop when one of them gradually sprouts wings. It's an endlessly entertaining bestiary from one of the country's most exciting practitioners of fiction. So do we really need to read about even more mythical creatures? In her wonderful new short story collection, "Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century," author Kim Fu proves that the answer is yes. They've been metaphorical ones, of course, but at this point, a literal kraken could make an appearance in Lake Minnetonka and nobody would bat an eye.
We're only one-fifth of the way through the 21st century, and we've already had more than our share of monsters.
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