Shirley Jackson Award Winner
World Fantasy, British Fantasy and Bram Stoker Award Finalist

“Nathan Ballingrud is one of my favorite short fiction writers.”
—  Jeff VanderMeer

“Nathan Ballingrud’s brilliant fiction brims with imagination, integrity (I do not use that term lightly), and an authentic world-weary dread that bores directly into your heart.”
— Paul Tremblay

“What Nathan Ballingrud does in North American Lake Monsters is to reinvigorate the horror tradition.”
—— John Langan

Nathan Ballingrud’s award winning debut collection is a cornerstone of contemporary horror fiction that dismantles the boundaries around genre fiction. Shattering and luminous, North American Lake Monsters explores the darker parts of the human psyche to reveal monsters, real and imagined, external and internal. They are us and we are them. What is revealed in these stories is a working class portrait of 21st century American life that is as cruel as it is fragile and as precarious as it is tenacious.

These are love stories and monster stories. Monsters who wear the faces of parents, lovers, or ourselves. The people in these stories are driven to extremes by love and by desperation. Sometimes, they are ruined; sometimes redeemed. All are faced with the loneliest corners of themselves and strive to escape.

Allow us to introduce you to your favourite horror writer’s favourite horror writer.

This is an Advance Order. Published March 2025