A lonely little girl finds a monster, and decides to keep it. A student's project involves the release of hundreds of life-affirming balloons. A young boy collects incredibly detailed serial killer dolls. A pragmatic young man will do whatever he thinks is necessary to keep his girlfriend. What could possibly go wrong? In this collection of twenty exceedingly odd and original stories, Bram Stoker-nominated Bill Breedlove takes everyday items-magic shampoo, Boy Scout hatchets, animatronic Howler monkeys-and creates tales which are by turns comical, horrifying and endlessly entertaining. "Bill Breedlove is a masterful writer, and the stories in How To Die Well are some of the most exhilarating and strange and downright good that you will ever read. I anxiously await to see what he comes up with next". —Donald Ray Pollock, author of The Devil All the Time