An absolutely brutal and brilliant collection. Rejection is short: there are seven stories, of which the first five are substantial character studies,An absolutely brutal and brilliant collection. Rejection is short: there are seven stories, of which the first five are substantial character studies, and the last two a coda to those (the stories are all linked). The character studies, in the main, follow unhappy and self-sabotaging people: in ‘The Feminist’, a man who’s furious his status as a self-proclaimed feminist doesn’t get him dates; in ‘Pics’, a woman whose obsession with a crush destroys her life; in ‘Ahegao’, a gay guy who struggles not with his sexuality but with the fact that he can only get off on a particular, hard-to-articulate fetish. The broader themes here – dating, the internet, the soul-crushing combination of the two, repression, and, obviously, rejection – are explored in a lot of contemporary fiction, but it’s Tulathimutte’s writing that really makes it work: raw, shorn of any restraint, horribly true. The obvious point of comparison is Kristen Roupenian’s You Know You Want This – in particular, ‘The Feminist’ followed by ‘Pics’ reminded me of the one-two punch of ‘Cat Person’ and ‘The Good Guy’ – and I also thought a lot about Paul Dalla Rosa’s use of voice in An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life.
I received an advance review copy of Rejection from the publisher through Edelweiss....more
I’m sure there are other contenders, but Yasmin Zaher’s The Coin, about a Palestinian woman in New York City, feels to me like the buzzy book of the sI’m sure there are other contenders, but Yasmin Zaher’s The Coin, about a Palestinian woman in New York City, feels to me like the buzzy book of the summer. And maybe the weight of expectation did it no good, because I found this to be a fairly run-of-the-mill story about a woman under pressure. Obsessed with the filth of the city and seemingly lacking any kind of emotional life, the narrator ‘works’ at a private school for boys and strikes up a friendship with a homeless scammer. It’s all well-written, but I’ve read its like many times before, and it’s difficult to care about someone falling apart when they’re so rich that they’re insulated from consequence. The fact of its protagonist’s wealth makes The Coin virtually indistinguishable from the many stories of this type that already exist about affluent American women. Sure you can map certain anxieties attributed to nationality onto the character’s obsessions and actions, but honestly I think that’s a bit of a reach and not even what the book itself is going for – the author has said it’s ‘more of a New York novel than a Palestinian novel’.
Comparisons to Ottessa Moshfegh absolutely stand up, though: themes of filth and cleanliness, the constant judging of others, the emotional vacuity... The Coin reminded me in particular of the Moshfegh story ‘Bettering Myself’ (also about a highly incompetent teacher!), and it has some similarities to Jade Sharma’s Problems too (though I think that was a much better book)....more
A fun, fast-paced graphic novel that made for a quick and entertaining read. Newly out as trans, Sammie is invited on a bachelor party trip, where theA fun, fast-paced graphic novel that made for a quick and entertaining read. Newly out as trans, Sammie is invited on a bachelor party trip, where they’re repeatedly misgendered and forced to participate in all sorts of performatively macho activities. But there’s also something distinctly weird about the location, a manmade island where the ‘fun’ includes the chance to hunt your own clone, and an organisation called the Gray Hand are recruiting people into a shady cult-like ‘network’. Boys Weekend is a lot of things – emotional drama, holiday-gone-wrong comedy, Lovecraftian horror – but I thought it all worked, in terms of the story at least. The weak point for me was actually the art. The backdrops seem unfinished, with good ideas for details but shaky execution, and I couldn’t always figure out how characters were meant to be feeling/reacting from how their facial expressions were drawn....more
I just couldn’t put this down. I read the whole thing across a single evening. Like its predecessor London Gothic, this is a disorientating, animate bI just couldn’t put this down. I read the whole thing across a single evening. Like its predecessor London Gothic, this is a disorientating, animate book, full of stories that both unnerve and amuse. The opener, ‘Welcome Back’, is a perfect case in point: it delves into academic office politics, with the narrator getting tangled up in accusations of bias when a colleague resigns. But believe me when I say you will never guess the twist. In ‘Simister’, a man’s attempt to do good deeds turns into a macabre comedy of errors. There are also some cool narrative experiments here, like ‘Disorder’, made up entirely of Joy Division lyrics, and ‘Strange Times’, which (seemingly) collects messages highlighting the homogeneity of language used to address the Covid-19 pandemic, the way phrases spread like... a virus, I suppose.
It’s the longer stories I really enjoyed, though. In ‘The Child’, a man is led on a strange journey after he visits a mysterious video shop. I always adore a lost film story, and this one is so gripping, so rich, I was ready to read it for hundreds of pages more. ‘Someone Take These Dreams Away’ is also a film story of sorts, a more haunting one, framing the experiences of its characters through described visuals from if.... ‘Zulu Pond’ has the most unpromising start (man moves back to Manchester, dwells on the memory of a girl he met for one night years ago), yet it unfolds into a brilliant exploration of the city’s waterlogged edgelands. In ‘The Apartment’, perhaps the most uncanny of the stories, the narrator hears voices above his top-floor flat and finds himself between reality and the ‘people texture’ of an architect’s rendering.
As with Daniel Carpenter’s recent collection Hunting by the River, having lived in Manchester undeniably added to the appeal of the stories for me – but that’s just a nice extra; Royle’s visions of the uncanny are incredibly compelling. I’m looking forward to the final volume of his city-based trilogy, which will be about Paris....more
Straight from the ‘made in a lab just for me’ short story universe, this is a ‘lost media’ story with a twist. Stella is a compulsive liar, if a harmlStraight from the ‘made in a lab just for me’ short story universe, this is a ‘lost media’ story with a twist. Stella is a compulsive liar, if a harmless one; she falsifies facts about her life partly to amuse herself, partly to see how people react. So when she asks an old friend if he remembers the fictitious kids’ TV series The Uncle Bob Show, she’s shocked when he not only says yes, but pulls out VHS tapes of old episodes on which they both appeared. Great starting point, well told, just long enough to pack enough detail in without overcomplicating things. A bit like Mister Magic if it was much better and a lot shorter. ...more
This anthology has a starry list of contributors but it’s full of so-so stories, the kind where you think ‘hmm, that was fine’ and then promptly forgeThis anthology has a starry list of contributors but it’s full of so-so stories, the kind where you think ‘hmm, that was fine’ and then promptly forget everything about it. Best of the bunch is Helen Oyeyemi’s weird and entertaining ‘Hygiene’, told through messages and emails, in which a man suddenly finds a conversation with his girlfriend hijacked by a friend who makes a series of bizarre demands. It’s both original and genuinely Kafkaesque, where many of the stories manage only one of the two (or neither). ...more
Very slight, short novel that barely fills its 100-ish pages. Blanche, an awkward 16-year-old, is briefly delighted when she strikes up a friendship wVery slight, short novel that barely fills its 100-ish pages. Blanche, an awkward 16-year-old, is briefly delighted when she strikes up a friendship with the more self-assured Christa, but this curdles into hatred when Christa comes to stay with her family, wins over her parents and makes a series of belittling jabs at Blanche. Apparently it’s all supposed to be one big religious metaphor, but that doesn’t really come across. The inequitable friendship reminded me of Suzannah Dunn’s Levitation for Beginners, which does more interesting things with it. While Antichrista doesn’t appear to have been published as a YA novel, at least not in the UK, I’d probably have liked it a lot more had I read it as a teenager....more
The synopsis of State of Paradise sums it up so well, there’s almost no need to write a review at all. This does indeed depict a funhouse of uncannineThe synopsis of State of Paradise sums it up so well, there’s almost no need to write a review at all. This does indeed depict a funhouse of uncanniness hidden in Florida’s underbelly and a sticky, rain-soaked reckoning with the elusive nature of storytelling. Its narrator, who works as a ghostwriter of popular-but-trashy thrillers, has recently returned to her home state of Florida. She’s living with her mother and next door to her sister, who’s become addicted to MIND’S EYE, a virtual reality headset that was handed out free during the pandemic. It’s a time of increasingly extreme weather, and during one particularly apocalyptic storm, her sister disappears.
When the story starts, its contours seem familiar; van den Berg relies on that precise assumption to wrongfoot the reader. You might think you know what the narrator’s referring to when she talks about ‘the pandemic’, but then she describes some of the lasting side effects – her bellybutton has changed shape, her sister’s eyes are a different colour – and suddenly you’re wondering if this story is taking place within our world at all. Unfamiliarity with the setting adds a further sheen of weirdness to the whole thing (I imagine this book reads very differently if you’ve ever lived in Florida). This sense of a slightly altered world is key to State of Paradise’s mission. It’s a slippery story about stories – about how we rewrite our histories to empower (or deny) ourselves.
For me, it was all strongly reminiscent of Alexandra Kleeman’s novels You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine and Something New Under the Sun. In fact, it’s as though someone spliced the two of them together: the surreal setting and mysterious disappearances from You Too, the overtones of climate disaster from Something New, the cult elements from both. This was slightly to State of Paradise’s detriment; I just love Kleeman’s writing so much, and this doesn’t quite hit the same heights. It’s also a lighter, less complex read compared to van den Berg’s last novel, The Third Hotel.
I liked it, though – the palpable humidity of the setting, the startling suggestions about our narrator’s account of her own past. Unsurprisingly, I would firmly recommend this book to fans of Alexandra Kleeman’s fiction. I’d also compare it to other tricky, hallucinatory narratives like The Scapegoat and Looking Glass Sound, and in its last act it reminded me of nothing so much as the wild twists of The Writing Retreat.
I received an advance review copy of State of Paradise from the publisher through Edelweiss....more
I’m surprised this book hasn’t had more attention, and a little frustrated to see it getting lumped in with mediocre ‘sad girl’ books. The Cellist folI’m surprised this book hasn’t had more attention, and a little frustrated to see it getting lumped in with mediocre ‘sad girl’ books. The Cellist follows a successful cello soloist, Luciana, as she looks back on a particular time of her life – a period of debilitating stage fright that happened to coincide with her only significant relationship. It’s a deeply introspective, mature story about the question of whether creative practice can coexist with romantic love and the big life changes that often follow it (marriage, children).
When Luciana meets Billy, she’s a rising star and he – an artist – is unknown. Then, after Luciana collapses during a performance, things start to shift. She struggles to find her way back to performing and to understand what effect falling in love has had on her as a musician. None of this happens in a straight line, though, and Luciana’s ability to logically assess her own feelings doesn’t make it any easier to work out the tangles.
Without regaining my certainty, I did not see a way back to the stage. I knew, then, that I had to consider the situation as an event that happened because I’d lost something. Yet I resisted considering it this way. I did not want to think of loss, which could, for all I knew, be permanent. I wanted that night to be an aberration, because I did not want to change any ideas of myself.
There’s a startling clarity of prose here, and Luciana’s narrative voice embodies a confidence that sits interestingly (and uneasily?) alongside the character’s uncertainty. It’s a story that carries a strong sense of emotional truth. I found it extremely moving at points, especially when Billy moves on and Luciana struggles, despite a deeply held conviction that they don’t want or need the same things. In devoting herself to art, has she made the right choice? The answer is always obvious, yet never fully fixed.
I would compare The Cellist to White on White by Aysegül Savas, another elegantly written novel about art and selfhood, and Arrangements in Blue by Amy Key; while Key’s book is non-fiction, it similarly explores the landscape of a life lived without romantic love. Though less of a psychological puzzle, it also reminded me of Delphine de Vigan’s Based on a True Story – the same sense of a a narrator working through the devastating effect of creative blockage, as well as the subsumption of their identity into another person....more
Carpenter’s debut collection is superb – a welcome addition to the canon of the urban weird. Set across Manchester, London and a few unloved corners oCarpenter’s debut collection is superb – a welcome addition to the canon of the urban weird. Set across Manchester, London and a few unloved corners of England, the book is full of great ideas executed well: ‘Stink Pit’ follows a group of hunt saboteurs who wonder if one of their number might be an undercover cop; in ‘Gods & Kings’, a man finds out his old uni mate has become a neo-Nazi. A few more experimental pieces – like ‘Flotsam’ and ‘Myrmidons’ – I found less effective; the stories here are at their best when tethered to a specific location. Carpenter is great at communicating a sort of authentic griminess that speaks to the reality of living in these places, rather than simply an uncomplicated nostalgia.
Two of the best are Manchester stories. ‘Hunting by the River’, about a man’s search for his missing sister, boasts some incredible creepy details. ‘Beneath the Pavement, the Beach’, with its series of parallel cities, is so ambitious it could easily be expanded into a novel. I’d already read the London-rental-nightmare story ‘Habitual’, which appears in the anthology For Tomorrow, and it fits really well into this collection – in fact, better here than in the anthology. Another favourite, ‘A Visitors Guide to Penge Magic (Annotated)’, is a spellbinding strange story that plays out across the pages of a doubly-annotated historical diary. Read this book if you’ve loved anything by Joel Lane or Gary Budden, The Magnus Archives or the Portals of London blog....more
The lives of two young men, both second-generation immigrants, become fatefully intertwined as they head down very different paths. David’s descent inThe lives of two young men, both second-generation immigrants, become fatefully intertwined as they head down very different paths. David’s descent into a racist, right-wing online rabbit hole is spurred on by the media cancellation of his long-time idol, the singer Karl Williams (an obvious stand-in for Morrissey, as the book’s title makes clear). Meanwhile, his Muslim classmate Hassan starts to feel alienated from his friends, who are getting into drinking and drugs. A violent encounter in a park sets both boys on a collision course, and an increasingly tense narrative, which switches between the characters, builds to a dramatic climax.
England is Mine is written in a very direct style, and I found some of the plain description jarring at first. The recitation of factual details, like brand names, makes it seem unpolished, possibly too simplistic. As I read on, though, I became more and more convinced by this approach – it feels true to the characters’ inner monologues, especially in the case of David, whose thinking becomes more binary as the story gathers pace. This simplicity works to strip the story back to its essence, so it becomes something like a police statement in which only factual details are permissible.
It’s always clear which ‘side’ Padamsee’s narrative is on and what sort of message it’s striving to convey. For all that, I never found it didactic and it remains sickeningly believable to the end (with a horrible irony woven into the ending). It’s a smart balance, written to be comprehensible to readers outside the worlds its characters move through, and given the unadorned style I’m pleasantly surprised at how much it’s stayed with me....more
Preferred this to The Ugly Truth, though I have the same feelings about both overall: they are compelling if not necessarily ‘good’. Clickbait followsPreferred this to The Ugly Truth, though I have the same feelings about both overall: they are compelling if not necessarily ‘good’. Clickbait follows a family of reality TV stars caught up in escalating scandal when a true crime YouTuber investigates the case of a teenager who disappeared from a party at their house. Like The Ugly Truth, it’s told through various transcripts, documents, emails etc. Like The Ugly Truth, it has some issues: I found the Lancasters unbelievable, along with the nature of their fame (I just don’t think you can apply the logic of event TV to YouTube...) But Clickbait has a stronger story, better – or at least livelier – voices, and doesn’t just feel like it’s ripping stuff from the lives of real celebrities. Plus Tom is an engaging character; I wouldn’t at all mind if this turns into a series and he pops up in future books.
Having recently read Cara Hunter’s Murder in the Family, which is also a mixed-media thriller, I couldn’t help noticing how many similarities there are in the plots: both start in 2003 with the death or disappearance of a young man on the property of a wealthy family; both see a new investigation launched in the media twenty years later; both feature parents who are either dead or indisposed in the present-day storyline, and three now-adult children (two sisters and a brother). It’s obviously just a weird coincidence, but I wouldn’t recommend reading the books close together – this was all pretty distracting and I kept getting them mixed up. Anyway, my conclusion about both is pretty much the same: whatever their faults, I can’t pretend I wouldn’t read much more in the same format....more
Touted as ‘the first fully formatted, fully illustrated found fiction novella’, Revenge Arc moves between tweets, emails, blog posts, reddit threads aTouted as ‘the first fully formatted, fully illustrated found fiction novella’, Revenge Arc moves between tweets, emails, blog posts, reddit threads and messages on a Discord server as it tells the story of an online comics artist mired in controversy. Read it if you liked Idol, Burning, the graphic novel Parasocial or the film Red Rooms....more
I’ve been putting off writing about The Borrowed Hills; I’m worried I don’t have the ability to do it justice. My notes are crowded with ecstatic but I’ve been putting off writing about The Borrowed Hills; I’m worried I don’t have the ability to do it justice. My notes are crowded with ecstatic but useless phrases like ‘the real deal’ and ‘holy shit, this is a BOOK’. And in some ways I’d like to leave it at that. For better or worse, however, I like to pick apart why I loved things. So, first: this is a novel about a man, Steve Elliman, and his inheritance – not so much a literal inheritance as a way of life (shaped by centuries of farming knowledge) and character (the particular stoicism of the rural working class). It’s about how he is inexorably drawn back to the Lakes, to a volatile friend/neighbour/rival, William Herne, and to William’s wife Helen.
So many of us have a complicated love-hate attachment to the places we grew up in. What Preston does beautifully here is to capture that in a way that feels universal, but also makes it specific to the Lake District Steve knows. This is a place where farms stay in families for generations, tradition is still meaningful, and locals deride the ‘offcomers’. It’s wildly beautiful, yet bleak and hostile – a world away from the curated tourist image of the region. Every moment of The Borrowed Hills is steeped in the gristle and mulch of farming life. Some early scenes take place as the Elliman and Herne farms are afflicted by foot and mouth disease, and after reading them, that cover illustration of a sheep amid flames takes on a much more sinister significance.
Some of the language is a tough nut to crack; Steve peppers his narrative with dialect words that don’t come clear except with time and context. This creates the sense that the story, like its characters, is guarded and defensive, unwilling to letting an outsider in. (For example, the chapter titles use yan-tan-tethera, a method of counting sheep which mixes dead language with Cumbrian dialect. This is never actually explained anywhere, so it didn’t even occur to me that these titles were numbers until I was some way into the book and I realised none of the words had appeared elsewhere, so couldn’t be, as I’d vaguely supposed, place names.)
The Borrowed Hills is also a story about the violence of men alone. We’re always seeing ‘individualism’ spoken about as a modern ill; what Preston shows us, through Steve, is not so much robust independence but something more ancient; solitude as an ancient survival instinct. What can a sense of community even be, when you make your home in so remote a place? And what happens if something goes wrong within that tiny group? In a different story, Steve’s dangerous pull towards Helen might only destroy his fragile truce with William, but here it (along with the arrival of a violent new influence) becomes a threat to a whole way of life.
I read parts of this book at the same time as I was reading another, less-good book. The contrast was illuminating: while the other book disappeared from my mind as soon as I closed it, I couldn’t stop thinking about The Borrowed Hills and felt fully immersed in its world. All this bleak horror contrasting with the beauty of the landscape. There’s a central sequence that is just so exciting and tense – you feel the exhaustion, the way it never seems to end, yet how critical it is to keep going, and I read it in the same way, reluctant to put the book down until it was over.
The themes of The Borrowed Hills reminded me of knotty modern fiction about masculinity such as Ross Raisin’s Waterline and Rob Doyle’s Here Are the Young Men. But I also really think fans of Tana French need to get on this. While it’s not a crime novel (although in some ways it is?), I haven’t read anything else that approximates the same combination of a real sense of a place and a people with writing that is simultaneously lyrical, expressive and down to earth.
I received an advance review copy of The Borrowed Hills from the publisher through NetGalley....more
The Poison Tree is one of my favourites among Erin Kelly’s novels, but to be honest, I never felt it needed a sequel. So I approached this book – The Poison Tree is one of my favourites among Erin Kelly’s novels, but to be honest, I never felt it needed a sequel. So I approached this book – which revisits Karen, Rex and their daughter Alice more than twenty years after the fateful summer of 1997 – with what I’d call cautious interest. However, as soon as I started reading, that was it: I was hooked. This is Kelly’s most arresting, compelling work in years.
It’s also not exactly a sequel, not a straightforward ‘second in the series’. It works just as well as a standalone novel, and is more of a reimagining – a reboot, if you like. It sets us down in another blazingly hot London summer, among a set of characters that mirror (but don’t simply replicate) those in the earlier book. The narrative is split between Alice, now in her twenties and running a vintage clothing boutique, and an increasingly paranoid Karen, desperate to protect her family as the Capels’ scandalous past rears its head again. The plot hinges on Alice’s obsessive curiosity about her parents’ history; her relationship with the sketchy (or is he?) Gabe; and the mystery of an eerily familiar stranger who’s keen to make contact with Alice. It has the heart and soul of the paciest thriller while it explores the depths of familial love from multiple angles.
It’s a brilliant way of approaching the premise, and you can absolutely read it if you haven’t read The Poison Tree. In fact, it might be even more enjoyable that way – a couple of things readers of The Poison Tree will already know are treated as plot twists here. I wasn’t bothered by this, though: even if you already know what’s coming, it all works because the perspective is new, the stakes different.
A real treat for fans of Kelly’s debut, but great in its own right, too. And so gripping, from first to last. Calling it a page-turner is an understatement; the speed with which I tore through this thing must actually have broken some record, if only a personal one.
I received an advance review copy of The House of Mirrors from the publisher through NetGalley....more
I picked this up a) on the strength of a glowing review at Strange Horizons and b) because I thought it was mixed media. Strictly speaking, it’s mostlI picked this up a) on the strength of a glowing review at Strange Horizons and b) because I thought it was mixed media. Strictly speaking, it’s mostly epistolary, switching between diary entries and emails as it tracks a father’s determined search for his 12-year-old daughter. The missing girl, Liza, was obsessed with ‘the Hidden World’, the setting of her favourite fantasy series, and it’s these books (and their enigmatic author) that prove key to untangling what happened to her. I can never resist something that has plot points like ‘person follows clue to to place and ends up in a weird museum’, and Dreambound combines that with whimsical fantasy – something I wouldn’t usually enjoy, but here it gives the narrative an edge, makes the book feel like something fresh. Pure fun with a big heart....more
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