Encounters with Unexpected Animals, Bret Anthony Johnston
Encounters with Unexpected Animals, Bret Anthony Johnston
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Encounters with Unexpected Animals
Stories

Author: Bret Anthony Johnston

Narrator: Christian Baskous, George Newbern, Max Meyers, Eddie Lopez, Kaleo Griffith

Unabridged: 6 hr 8 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/24/2026

Synopsis

An imaginative, moving collection of stories infused with the magic and enigma of the human condition and drenched in Texas heat, from the best-selling author of We Burn Daylight.

Encounters with Unexpected Animals takes readers deep into the heart of bestselling author Bret Anthony Johnston’s home state of Texas, where teenagers search for love, parents grasp at connections with their children, and animals—real or imagined, familiar or unexpected—are reminders of the mystery, danger, and beauty of being alive.

In “Caiman,” a father buys a baby alligator in hopes of keeping his family safe. In “Soldier of Fortune,” a teenage boy dog-sits for his neighbors after tragedy strikes, and his innocent snooping uncovers the family’s most guarded secret. And in the luminous “Half of What Atlee Rouse Knows About Horses,” an elderly man’s heart is laid bare with the raw and breathtaking power of wild horses.

Johnston’s humor, empathy, and mastery of prose ring out through each story, bringing every finely-drawn character to radiant life. Individually, the stories are by turns suspenseful, poignant and exhilarating. Taken together, they reveal the abiding connections that lead us from sorrow and impermanence back to ourselves and, ultimately, to each other.

About The Author

Bret Anthony Johnston is the author of the bestselling novels We Burn Daylight and Remember Me Like This, the award-winning Corpus Christi: Stories, and the editor of Naming the World: And Other Exercises for the Creative Writer. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, The Paris Review, Thrasher Magazine, The Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship and the Sunday Times Short Story Award, he was born and raised in Texas and is the director of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jill on November 15, 2025

There are only two kinds of stories in Bret Anthony Johnston’s Encounters with Unexpected Animals. The excellent. And the extraordinary. And by extraordinary, I mean, “OMG, he just wrote something so amazingly exquisite and spot-on and TRUE that it’s laying my heart bare and it’s revealing something......more

Goodreads review by Mary on January 08, 2026

I am a HUGE fan of Bret Anthony Johnson’s novels, and so I approached his new short story collection, “Encounters with Unexpected Animals”, hoping they would be as rewarding. Well, I fell in love on the first page of the first story with the recently widowed man who’s thirteen-year-old son was compe......more

Goodreads review by Susan on October 29, 2025

As with all collections of short stories, I liked some of these better than others. All are set in TX and explore residents hopes, dreams, tragedies, and life events. I loved 'Paradeability' about a widower taking his son to a clown convention in Houston. Who knew all the types of clowns that exist,......more

Goodreads review by Suzette on February 19, 2026

I recently read Encounters With Unexpected Animals by Bret Anthony Johnston. This collection of short stories offers a thoughtful exploration of family, relationships, and the ways animals—both literal and symbolic—intersect with our lives. Johnston’s writing is sharp yet tender, capturing moments o......more

Goodreads review by Nancy on January 24, 2026

Uncertain, Texas, is where you wind up if you’re lost. Or aim to be. from Encounters with Unexpected Animals Marvelous short stories about the odd, the everyday, parents and children, our relationship to animals, filled with humor and beautifully expressed insights. A dad takes his son to a clown conv......more

Quotes

Praise for Encounters with Unexpected Animals

“[Johnston’s] empathy for his troubled characters illuminates their predicaments and mistakes with a solemn, steady light.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Each entry portrays the complex lives of its characters with compassion, understanding, and incisive detail. These distinctive character-driven tales will linger in readers’ minds.”—Publishers Weekly

“Deeply engrossing and hard-to-forget stories . . . Johnston pulls off the great adventure of short fiction: episodic tours of the heart.”—Booklist


Praise for Bret Anthony Johnston

“A cause for celebration . . . literature of the highest order.”—The New York Times

“The language is luminous and the delivery almost flawless.”—The Boston Globe

“Tremendously moving . . . There’s real humanity in Johnston’s writing.”—The Washington Post

“Johnston’s exquisitely drawn men and women are riders on the storm . . . where the past
is too easily washed away and the ocean has no memory. . . . Stunning and complex.”—Los Angeles Times

“Flawless storytelling.”—John Irving, New York Times bestselling author of The Cider House Rules

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