In these devastating short stories, the hopeful monsters in question are those who will not be tethered by familial duty nor bound by the ghosts of their past. Home becomoes fraught, reality a nightmare as Hiromi Goto weaves her characters through tales of domestic crises and cultural dissonance. Goto's characters are imbued with the light of myth and magic realism. With humour and keen insight, Goto makes the familiar seem strange and deciphers those moments when the idyllic skews into the absurd and the sublime.