{"product_id":"9781681371894","title":"Compulsory Games","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe best and most interesting stories by Robert Aickman, a master of the supernatural tale, the uncanny, and the truly weird.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCross Henry James with M.R. James and you might end up with a writer like Robert Aickman, though his self-described “strange stories” remain confoundingly and uniquely his own. Aickman’s superbly written tales terrify not with standard thrills and gore but through a radical overturning of the laws of nature and everyday life. His territory of the strange, of the “void behind the face of order,” is a surreal region that grotesquely mimics the quotidian: Is that river the Thames, or is it even a river? What does it mean when a prospective lover removes one dress, and then another—and then another? Do a herd of cows in a peaceful churchyard contain the souls of jilted women preparing to trample a cruel lover to death? Published for the first time under one cover, this collection offers a generous introduction to a sophisticated, psychologically acute modernist whose achievements have too long been hidden under the cloak of genre.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"New York Review Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47057026023664,"sku":"9781681371894","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781681371894_p0.jpg?v=1763692630","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781681371894","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}