Fierce Wounded Things by Eric Bennett is a dark and quirky collection of stories about deeply flawed characters doing what they must to keep loneliness and anguish at bay.

Straddling the line between haunting and hilarious, Fierce Wounded Things is a collection of stories that will appeal to readers of Aimee Bender, Amy Hemphill, or George Saunders.

The first-ever project created by Fallible House, it features 11 original illustrations by Abigail Jennings and photographs by Laura Riley.

from Mark alan Burger
editor-in-chief

Fierce Wounded Things is a collection of small triumphs and tragedies. These stories magnify the depths of loss with prose that is sparse and vivid, illuminating a world mired with complexities and contradictions. Chance encounters are solidified as fate, accidents become life-altering events, and the monotony of life becomes an overwhelming force. In Fierce Wounded Things, Eric Bennett exalts the dejected, transforming that which is easily forgotten into an unavoidable echo, in stories that linger long after you set them down. 

Simply put, Eric Bennett is the reason Fallible House exists. He was the rope that pulled us all together, the mutual friend who introduced us to one another and, after years of indefatigable encouragement to go out, get together, and do something with ourselves. Fierce Wounded Things is a mighty, quiet, and triumphant collection of short stories, ones that echo a sentiment Eric has expressed to many before, that relationships consist of the giving and receiving of wounds. Friends toughen, soothe, plead, muster, and inspire. I’m proud to call Eric my friend. 

Abigail Jennings
Creative Director

At Fallible House we describe our intention to make books that are honest, provoking, and spirited. Here is a fragrant first offering : Fierce Wounded Things is a body of stories with guttural characters in varying stages of distress, disgrace, and decomposition. Their lives are shaped by their flaws, and vignettes give us a glimpse of what grows under that pressure with strange joy.

Borne of a keen eye for the particularities of human complication, intimate moments with the unseemly play out in these pages. Their author, Eric Bennett, loves words and loves well. It is rare and special to find something beautiful and not be able to describe where its beauty comes from. Yet he snags the eloquence from the click, blur, and rot of a moment.

I love these stories, just like I loved being found by Eric as a young person. Eric was ever my inspirer, helping me find poetry, urging me to create, empowering me to help myself, conjuring angels by the New York public library, bringing me into his family, and pouring coffee into a tub of ice cream to change my life. It would take so many of my words to describe the man who taught me the power of words, so for now I offer you words of Eric’s own, “Out of your sloppiness you ministered to me. Hate the word ministered. You lullabied me.”

When I was 17, I met Eric Bennett, and we planned to tell stories together. Seven years later, it’s coming into being.

From Jesse Scott owen
publisher

The greatest thing about my time at The King’s College were the weekly coffee appointments I kept with Eric Bennett. Eric mentored me for years, and helped me through many trials, and lent me books along the way. He introduced me to many dear friends, including Abigail Jennings, and taught me much about life, and about myself. When I approached Mark and Abigail about starting a publishing company, we all knew about his manuscript, Fierce Wounded Things and we wanted to make it real. 

Editing Fierce Wounded Things has been a great privilege, and heavy responsibility. I can’t wait to publish this strange, spooky selection of short stories. For those who do not know Eric, you will get to know him by route of a startling cast of pretty fucked-up individuals and their circumstances. For those who do, I expect you will be all the more surprised. Eric’s way of rooting out one’s secrets, one’s trauma, and helping to light a path to safety, is his trademark, and his life has been a work of healing. Here, in Eric’s stories, you will find a unique pain, and a unique cure. The cure is love.

The three of us represent just a small portion of Eric’s warming effect on the world around him. These stories, reminiscent of Miranda July and Denis Johnson, will unsettle, and will, I hope, carry Eric Bennett’s legacy even farther.