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
Dead Letters is an anthology with a brilliant concept which just happens to be weighted towards subgenres I don’t much enjoy. If you prefer monster stDead Letters is an anthology with a brilliant concept which just happens to be weighted towards subgenres I don’t much enjoy. If you prefer monster stories, cosmic horror, action/gore and dark fantasy over ghost stories and subtler shades of weird fiction, you might get more out of this book than I did. Which is to say I didn’t love it, but that’s not a value judgement, just a matter of taste. And of course there are some great stories here, especially ‘Re: The Hand (of god)’ by J.A.W. McCarthy, which uses emails and messages to tell the story of a woman who gets trapped at work... with a severed hand... that keeps getting bigger. How you even come up with an idea as original and strange as this story, I’ll never know. Also really liked ‘Something Cool Behind the Waterfall’ by Nat Reiher (similarly original), ‘Family Dirt’ by Justin Allec, ‘The Second Death’ by Christina Wilder, ‘Echo Chamber’ by Gemma Files and ‘Berkey Family Vacation 1988’ by Jacob Steven Mohr....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
I’m planning to reread this later in the year, and will write more then, but for now, I love LOVED it – a stunning spin on ‘dark academia’ tropes, a sI’m planning to reread this later in the year, and will write more then, but for now, I love LOVED it – a stunning spin on ‘dark academia’ tropes, a story that turns itself upside down and shakes everything out. Not only is it a story about privilege and obsession and envy, it gets to the heart of something about why we are so endlessly fascinated by these stories. An instant favourite, to sit next to The Party, The Bellwether Revivals and Engleby....more
I bought this within minutes of learning about its existence. A horror anthology based entirely around doppelgangers, doubles and changelings?! What aI bought this within minutes of learning about its existence. A horror anthology based entirely around doppelgangers, doubles and changelings?! What a great idea! Sadly, it gets off to a bad start: the first story doesn’t so much riff on Taxi Driver as steal from it (there’s taking inspiration from a film, and then there’s lifting some of the best dialogue in cinema history and putting it straight into your story; the latter doesn’t sit right with me). I hoped this would be the low point, but some of the others are even weaker, and the quality level rarely rises above ‘okay but not great’. Only one is truly strong: ‘Who Is That On the Other Side of You?’ by Timothy J Jarvis, which follows two lookalike men on an Antarctic expedition, is compelling and told in an effective format. Other than that... I don’t like being negative about stuff from small presses, but it’s hard to find many redeeming features here....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
Having long been a fan of Mariana Enríquez’s short stories – especially the superb Things We Lost in the Fire, the first of her books to be translatedHaving long been a fan of Mariana Enríquez’s short stories – especially the superb Things We Lost in the Fire, the first of her books to be translated into English – I was excited to get stuck in to this brand-new collection. ‘Face of Disgrace’ is creepy and genuinely disturbing at points; ‘Different Colours Made of Tears’ has good character work and a strong voice; both of them are anchored by original concepts. ‘A Sunny Place for Shady People’ is unexpectedly poignant, ‘A Local Artist’ starts strong and has a well-realised setting. Unfortunately, most of the rest don’t get much better than merely ‘fine’. There’s little here that lives up to Things We Lost in the Fire, or even the earlier, less polished The Dangers of Smoking in Bed.
Not for the first time, I wonder why the synopsis and marketing of a book doesn’t reflect the actual content of the book. Sunny Place is sold as a collection of macabre stories exploring ‘love, womanhood, LGBTQ counterculture, parenthood and Argentina’s brutal past’. I’m not sure I could locate some of these themes in the book if I tried (did I miss whatever the ‘LGBTQ counterculture’ part was supposed to be?) This is a collection that leans heavily on body horror; it’s really the main theme that runs through most of the stories, so it’s weird this isn’t mentioned anywhere. Body horror is a specific flavour of horror, and while it has been present in Enríquez’s stories before, it’s more prevalent here, and much blunter too. This results in the type of horror story I admire rather than like. I appreciate it takes skill to get under the reader’s skin, to provoke disgust, but I don’t feel pleasantly spooked by these kind of stories, just a bit nauseous.
I’m tempted to wonder if something was lost in translation here – and not just the title (which sounds bizarrely cheesy in English, and strikes entirely the wrong tone for the book). Two of the stories are based on urban legends that are so well-known as to border on cliche; I initially assumed these must be less well-known in Argentina... except I’ve been looking through the reviews in Spanish, and a recurring criticism there is that Enríquez is trying too hard to tailor her style for Western audiences. Finally, to go back to the body horror thing: honestly, I didn’t enjoy the way many of these stories use disability or disease to incite fear. Maybe this has always been a feature of Enríquez’s writing and I haven’t picked up on it enough; maybe there’s just a lot more of it in this book. Either way, I wasn’t comfortable with it.
I received an advance review copy of A Sunny Place for Shady People from the publisher through Edelweiss....more
I recently wrote a newsletter about what I look for in summer reading, and this is a perfect example of EXACTLY the sort of book I was thinking about.I recently wrote a newsletter about what I look for in summer reading, and this is a perfect example of EXACTLY the sort of book I was thinking about. Final Act is soapy, fun and easy to read, but it is also extremely well-written and expertly plotted. It follows a ‘lost’, and later rediscovered, painting by the forgotten surrealist painter of the title. The work, ‘Self-Portrait as Sphinx’, is a sensation in the 1930s and later believed to have been destroyed by Juliette Willoughby’s estranged family. In 1991, a student thinks she’s found it, only to have her research derailed by a conspiracy that will span decades. It’s a juicy, absorbing story, Fake Like Me but with a bigger historical angle, and I ate it up.
Given the book’s title and its central focus, it’s perhaps odd that Juliette’s narrative is the weakest of the three. We start with journal entries and then jump into her perspective – I didn’t think this quite worked, the way we’re at a remove from Juliette’s actual experience and then suddenly not, for reasons of narrative convenience. On the other hand, I couldn’t get enough of Caroline and Patrick’s story. Their world feels so rich (perhaps demonstrating the strengths of Ellery Lloyd as a husband-and-wife writing team) and everything is drawn together with surprising poignancy in the book’s concluding chapters....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
It’s the damp summer of 1972 and 10-year-old Deborah is accustomed to the familiar rhythms of life in a small English village. The only child of a sinIt’s the damp summer of 1972 and 10-year-old Deborah is accustomed to the familiar rhythms of life in a small English village. The only child of a single parent, she sees everything reflected through the views of her mother, an opinionated young working-class widow. Then comes change: into this tiny world sweeps a new family in the village and a new girl at school. Sarah-Jayne is only Deborah’s age, but she dresses in fashionable clothes and is full of outlandish tales – she’s lived abroad, she’s tried alcohol, her house has a swimming pool... While the other girls are captivated, Deborah’s response is more complex. She both doubts Sarah-Jayne’s claims and is fascinated by her apparent maturity and mysterious knowledge.
There’s plenty of humour in Levitation for Beginners, much of it deriving from Deborah’s childish misunderstandings of things other people say (when she learns a boy and girl at school are ‘going out’, she wonders why the two of them haven’t left the classroom). Even so, it’s not hard to sense a darkness lurking beneath the surface. From the start, Sarah-Jayne seems disturbingly adult for a ten-year-old; this is, after all, the source of her glamour for the village girls. Place that alongside her oddly close relationship to her much older sister’s even older boyfriend, and the way she parrots his chauvinistic ideas about women, and a disturbing picture starts to form – for the reader, if not for Deborah.
Yet one of the main strengths of the book, for me, is how ambiguous it remains. Many major elements of the plot are only ever implied. Even when we seem to have confirmation of something, it’s essentially just hearsay. The voice is perfectly balanced between young Deborah and her adult reassessment of the events of 1972; her 10-year-old voice is distinct, but it never feels like you’re actually reading a child’s narrative (which neatly allows Dunn to get away with using the sort of evocative description a child never would).
Little about this book was what I expected, and it was all the better for it. It’s a quietly well-crafted novel: discomfiting without overt drama, comforting but not schmaltzy, and inconclusive yet satisfying....more
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