A review by matthewcpeck
Man V. Nature by Diane Cook

4.0

Diane Cook's striking story collection focuses on ordinary people in surreally extreme circumstances, in the spirit of "The Exterminating Angel". With calm and uncluttered prose, she pulls the reader into scenes that waver between nightmarish and funny. There not an a forgettable story in the bunch, but my favorites include the title story (three middle-aged dudes on a fishing trip get inexplicably lost in the middle of a lake, and drift towards oblivion); "It's Coming" (an office building under attack by a giant monster, told in plural first person); "Somebody's Baby" (a town in which newborns are serially abducted by a shadowy man). The two comparatively "realistic" stories - "Girl on Girl" and "Meteorologist Dave Santana" - are just as interesting; the former testing my squeamishness and the latter filled with humanity. "Man Vs. Nature" is a beautifully controlled collection that manages to be simultaneously outlandish and uncomfortably close-to-home.