The brilliant new short story collection from the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author of The Animals in That Country.
A family of cat farmers gets the chance to set the felines free. A group of chickens tells it like it is. A female-crewed ship ploughs through the patriarchy. A support group finds solace in a world without men.
With her trademark humour, energy, and flair, McKay offers hallucinogenic glimpses of places where dreams subsume reality, where childhood restarts, where humans embrace their animal selves and animals talk like humans.
The stories in Gunflower explode and bloom in mesmerising ways, showing the world both as it is and as it could be.
Praise for The Animals in That Country-
'This is a game-changing, life-changing novel, the kind that comes along right when you need it, and compels you to listen to its terrifying poetry. Compulsively readable and yet also pushing the boundaries of what is possible in terms of language and narrative, this is a brilliant and disturbing book that will make you rethink everything you thought you understood about non-human animal sentience and agency. I don't think any reader can ever forget a voice like Sue the dingo's - wise and obscene in equal measure. A triumph.'
-Ceridwen Dovey, author of Only the Animals
Praise for The Animals in That Country-
'This is an absorbing and affecting book, and one to which I'm able to pay the highest compliment- that, in the days after finishing it, the world felt different to me, its animals not speaking but not silent either.'
-Ben Brooker, Australian Book Review
Praise for The Animals in That Country-
'The genius stroke of The Animals in That Country is the preternatural 'body talk' of its animals ... an affecting book, one that gets remarkably close to the unknowable wildness of animal sentience.'
-Jack Callil, The Age