Nathan Sellyn’s debut fiction collection, Indigenous Beasts (Raincoast), may alienate readers who are not interested in tales of men and boys learning to deal with their egos and the world around them. In these fourteen stories, set in cities and towns across Canada, will be found much youthful mischief, love and jealousy troubles, problem parents, homophobia, molestation, violence between men and violence against women. The first story is ugly and off-putting; the next ones get better and the writing becomes more sensitive, and by the end we see an author capable of writing intelligent male characters concerned with something more than their own immaturity and masculinity. This is a rare thing, and it bodes well for Sellyn’s future as a writer.