Where there are monsters - Breanne Mc Ivor

In this powerfully engaging collection of short stories, Breanne Mc Ivor lifts the tropes and characters of Caribbean folklore and places them among the concrete, glass and heat of a hectic, recognizable, crime-ridden Trinidad.
These are not simply modern or modernised folktales, but beautifully crafted, fully formed contemporary stories by a hugely talented writer who uses them as narrative vehicles to address weighty questions about human nature and Trinidadian society.
What choice is there for a young man, besotted with an upperclass woman, when what stands between him and her, is the humiliating poverty he's trapped in? What monster does he embrace to break out of his situation?
To what extent do we also become victims of the violence we inflict on others? A young man, consumed by his inner monster - a Loup Garou - destroys the woman whose love sustains him. A mother comes face to face with a daughter who is about to marry the kind of man who, she believes, would turn out to be a 'monster' like her daughter's father.
In The Cannibal of Santa Cruz, a young woman grows into recognising and accepting the flesh-loving monster which lives in her.
Mc Ivor reaches deep into the roots of Trinidad folk narratives to present us with very modern versions of our troubled selves.