Imperfect Creatures

A metafictional mind-melter where time means nothing and everything at once, Joe Butler’s third novel blends visual elements, epistolary sections, and cyclical narratives to plumb the depths of loss of grief of horror. Clare returns home to Harrow, hits a man with her car, has a panic attack, goes to her father’s funeral, searches for his notes on his final book then Clare returns home to Harrow, hits a deer with her car, has a panic attack, goes to her father’s funeral, meets a stranger called Jack, searches for her dad’s notes then Clare returns home to Harrow, narrowly misses a man with her car, has a panic attack, skips her dad’s funeral, doesn’t meet a non-stranger called Jack, searches for her dad And that’s before everything falls apart. An unyielding plunge into memory, grief, and the instability of reality, Imperfect Creatures explores one woman’s experience with the House—an eldritch creature that feeds on pain and suffering, predating humankind’s shared conceptual universe. As Clare attempts to reckon with her mother’s traumatic death when she was a child and her father’s recent passing, the House draws her further and further into a web of illusion and realization, through phone calls, hallucinations, and a constant repetition repetition repetition of pain and horror.