"Power and haunting," and "nights of unrest" were typical reader responses. This collection, the only one to appear during Shirley Jackson's lifetime, unites "The Lottery:" with twenty-four equally unusual stories. Together they demonstrate Jackson's remarkable range--from the hilarious to the truly horrible--and power as a storyteller.

    It is also a story of violent human emotions—love and hate, hope and despair—and of the perpetual conflict between good and evil."The reason why The Track of the Cat is a novel of the first rank is that its author says something of universal significance. The black panther has always been there since the beginning of man's existence in the world. It will always be there, looming over man and always to be hunted though never killed." —San Francisco Chronicle"Mr. Clark knows his Nevada, as The Oxbow Incident proved, and he knows how to tell a good hunting story." —The New Yorker"This is the real beauty of Walter Clark's masterful prose—its wonderful capacity to evoke from the homeliest circumstances the quality of grief and loneliness that exists deep in or under every human effort." —The New York Times"Clark's story is continuously and wonderfully exciting. He is able to bring before the reader with extraordinary vividness the clash of stubborn wills in the snowbound ranch house, the unpopulated mountain landscape, the snow and cold, and above all, the hunt itself." —Yale Review

    He has grown up in, and infuses into his stories, an atmosphere one can cut with a knife. He is not dependent on regionalism--not all of his work has an Isle of Man setting--but it would appear he draws strength from it; his work at its best has the flavor, raciness, "body" that one associates with the best of the output from Ireland, Wales, Brittany, and the more remote, untouched, and primitive of the states of America. He turns for his inspiration to creeks in which life runs deep, to pockets in which life accumulates deeply queer. Is the Talking Mongoose a sore subject with the Isle of Man? That interesting animal--of which the investigations of the late Harry Price never entirely disposed--might well be the denizen of a Nigel Kneale story. Has he not made frogs avengers; has he not made a deformed duck a tragedian?