I came to Laura van den Berg’s 2020 short story collection I Hold a Wolf by the Ears after wrestling with her latest novel State of Paradise, a book that left me frustrated, like it had too many ideas for the single narrative. I thought it should’ve been a collection of short stories, where her wild imagination could push in weird directions without having to worry about cohesion or a bigger picture. More than one person read my State of Paradise review and told me to read I Hold a Wolf by the Ears. And they were right.
Both books traffic in the same territory—women on edge, reality as a slippery idea, Florida’s humid menace lurking in the background. But where State of Paradise felt like a fever dream that wouldn’t pick a lane (pandemic fallout, virtual reality cults, other frustrating tangents), I Hold a Wolf sharpens those themes into eleven taut, unsettling tales.
Take “Lizards,” where a husband sedates his wife with spiked seltzer to mute her anxieties. It’s creepy, funny, and sad all at once—a perfect microcosm of van den Berg’s knack for blending the absurd with the painfully human. Or the title story, where a woman impersonates her dead sister on a botched Italian vacation, only to unravel in ways both violent and strange. These aren’t tidy narratives; they’re weird and eminently memorable. Compared to State of Paradise’s overstuffed plot, the stories here feel focused, even when they meander.
Van den Berg’s women are always teetering, and that’s where the books overlap most. In State, the narrator’s a ghostwriter haunted by her past, stuck in a Florida that’s equal parts sinkhole and surrealism. In Wolf, the protagonists grapple with loss, identity, and the uncanny, often in settings that twist underfoot (earthquakes, volcanoes, a North Florida forest with literal ghosts). Both books explore how they hold on when everything’s slipping? Wolf answers with vignettes that don’t overstay their welcome.
The writing is brilliant in both. Van den Berg’s prose is crisp yet dreamy—sentences like “I hoped she was not yet dreaming of death, but of gardeners wrapping strands of their own hair around dirt-clotted roots” (from “Last Night”) stick with you. It’s the kind of lyricism that carried me through State’s chaos, but in Wolf, it’s paired with tighter control. The Washington Post called it “eye-popping description,” and they’re not wrong—though I’d argue it’s the quiet dread beneath that hooks you.
Still, it’s not flawless. Some stories linger around a bit too long, and I occasionally wanted more resolution. But that’s van den Berg’s game—she doesn’t do things the conventional way. After State of Paradise’s kitchen-sink approach, I appreciated the restraint. This collection landed on Time’s 10 Best Fiction Books of 2020 for a reason: it’s urgent, odd, and doesn’t try to be everything at once.
I Hold a Wolf by the Ears is van den Berg firing on all cylinders. If you dig short fiction that’s dark, twisted, and doesn’t coddle you, then this one’s worth grabbing. It’s not perfect, but it’s exactly what I was hoping for.
Further Reading
Read “I Hold a Wolf by the Ears”
