Cabinet of Wrath: A Doll Collection (Conversation Pieces)

Deep in the recesses of childhood memory, your old playthings await. Listen: don’t you hear them crying out for you? Come take a peek inside the Cabinet of Wrath to find out what really happens when toys go missing and the stark decision they must make if they ever want to go home again. Discover what doll heads really think about being separated from their bodies. Follow a skull-and-bones novelty ring as it assembles a full body for itself, bit by grisly bit, and learn how loving your doll too much can lead to grave consequences. Open the door to these fabulist tales of toys and vengeance for a playtime you’ll never forget.

“A delectably gruesome, tantalizingly bitey cabinet of wonders awaits you in this jewel box of a collection from Tara Campbell.”
~Tina Connolly, Hugo-nominated author of The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections

Kidnappers. Lovers. Killers. Seekers. I will be thinking about these stories in my nightmares.”
~Tara Laskowski, author of One Night Gone and Modern Manners For Your Inner Demons

“Tara Campbell's Cabinet of Wrath is an outrageously fun, inventive collection. Any writer who can show you the longing and quiet desperation of our own lives through the (frequently detached) eyes of a (frequently headless) Malibu Barbie is doing some kind of magic trick, which makes Tara Campbell a magician and Cabinet of Wrath pure magic.”
~Dave Housley, author of Massive Cleansing Fire and This Darkness Got to Give

“Tara Campbell’s latest collection is a deliciously creepy dive into the relationship between humans and their dolls. At times beheaded, at times idolized, at times fed jeweled cakes from the mouths of the masses, these childhood objects become the nightmares of our own humanity in fresh and disturbing ways.”
~Kelly Ann Jacobson, author of Tink and Wendy and An Inventory of Abandoned Things

Reviews:

Campbell (Midnight at the Organporium) delivers nine spooky stories of toys turned sinister that are sure to make readers reconsider the dolls, stuffed animals, and childhood playthings collecting dust in storage. In “Fairbanks,” an elderly woman playing around with voodoo believes that she’s successfully invited her husband’s spirit to inhabit her adult daughter’s old toys—but her daughter tries to convince her that she’s conjured more than just his ghost. Marie Antoinette’s daughter’s new doll becomes ever more demanding of treats in “Petite Marie.” And in “Spencer” a toy slowly fashions itself a new body from its neglectful owner’s body parts. Coupling a leisurely pace with horrifying tension, these eerie stories feel designed to be shared in the dark around a campfire. Though some of the shorter pieces end too abruptly, especially those dealing with heavy themes like immigration and rape, the imaginative scenarios and alluring voice never waver. Readers looking for bite-size horror will be delighted.
Publishers Weekly, May 2021

Cabinet of Wrath is a wonderful and playful romp through the land of dolls which I can therefore highly recommend. Its creepy cover can make this book seem terrifying on the surface—my husband is one of those people who will not, absolutely never, watch a horror movie featuring a doll and will certainly not buy dolls used—but there is so much intellectual play going on here that I found it difficult to be afraid of these dolls. In fact, it is the things that happen to these toys—unwanted pregnancies, being torn apart, enlisted into creepy fantasies without voice or agency—that are truly terrifying. Of course, they don’t just happen to dolls, or to little girls and women. They happen to everyone. That is why it’s scary.

Eve MortonStrange Horizons, November 21, 2022