Fairy-tale atmospheres and complex narratives are a hallmark of the fiction of Anne Serre, represented here by three radically heterodox novellas.  The Fool "may have stepped out of a tarot pack: I came across this little figure rather late in life. Not being familiar with playing cards, still less with the tarot, I was a bit uncomfortable when I first set eyes on him. I believe in magic figures and distrust them...a figure observing you can turn the world upside down."  The Narrator concerns a sort of writer-hero: "Outcasts who can't even tell a story are what you might call dropouts, lunatics, misfits. With them the narrator is in his element, but has one huge advantage: he can tell a story." Little Table, Set Yourself!-a moral tale concerning a family happily polyamorous-is the most overtly a fable of these three works, and the briefest, but thin as a razor is thin.  A dream logic rules each of these wildly unpredictable, sensual and surreal novellas: these may be romps, but nevertheless deeply moral and entirely unforgettable ones.

The author of fourteen novels and short story books, Anne Serre was born in 1960. Her work has been acclaimed here as "hypnotic, enchanting" (Publishers Weekly), "tight and fabulist" (Full Stop), and "strange and beguiling" (Kirkus).