We may enjoy a cheerful story in the moment, but it’s often the unsettling ones that haunt us long after we’ve turned the final page. The stories that leave us uneasy, even disturbed, tend to remain in our minds because they challenge our assumptions and confront us with questions we cannot easily answer. Alex Grant’s A Different Approach and Other Stories demonstrates this truth with striking clarity. Its tales entertain, but it is their disquieting edge that makes them unforgettable.
Take TAPP, for example. On its surface, the story unfolds like a clinical procedure, describing the “Authorised Punishment Plan” in which executioners carefully follow instructions to deliver justice. The step-by-step account is gripping, almost procedural, yet deeply disturbing. The pace and detail entertain readers, but what stays with them is the moral dilemma: when punishment mirrors crime, has society found justice, or surrendered to cruelty? It is this unease, not comfort, that echoes in the reader’s thoughts long after the story ends.
The title story, A Different Approach, works similarly. At first, it feels almost laughable, poking fun at outsourced contracts and “zero tolerance” slogans. But the humor quickly fades when petty offenses like littering or neglect spiral into terrifying punishments. The tale unsettles because it feels so plausible. We recognize the world of contracts and councils. Thus far, Grant takes it to an extreme that forces us to reflect on our own tolerance for authority. The comfort of satire gives way to the discomfort of recognition, and that discomfort remains.
Other stories in the collection rely less on satire and more on atmosphere. The Very Terrible Thing captures the strange dread of childhood fear, describing a mysterious figure on a church steeple. Nothing is explained fully, and that absence of resolution is precisely what stays with us. Similarly, Where Does Anything Start? blends chance encounters with eerie discoveries, entertaining with suspense while leaving readers to question how fate and choice intertwine. The unsettling ambiguity is more memorable than any tidy conclusion could be.
Even the lighter or satirical pieces contain an edge. An Important Meeting imagines God and saints debating the problems currently facing the whole of creation like a boardroom agenda. Readers smile at the absurdity, but beneath the laughter lies a reflection on faith, responsibility, and failure. Questions entertains with its surreal near-death encounter, including a vision of David Bowie, but it stays with us because it raises unanswerable questions about what comes after life.
My Uncle Roy blends family memory with unsettling notes of hidden power, while Be Careful What You Wish For turns a dream of flight into a disturbing meditation on parallel realities. Finally, The Startling Conclusions That Were Reached After the First Day’s Questioning combines alien contact with state secrecy, entertaining as a thriller but lingering as a reflection on trust, vulnerability and politics.
Unsettling stories suffer because they deny us closure. They live on in our minds, demanding we revisit them, wrestle with them, and interpret them anew. Alex Grant’s collection proves that while comfort fades, discomfort endures, and that is the true mark of powerful fiction.
If you want to read stories that will stay with you long after the final page, pick up Alex Grant’s A Different Approach and Other Stories and experience fiction that entertains, unsettles, and remains.
Read this book now on Amazon: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0FF3PZ1QT.
