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Single-author horror anthologies to check out
There’s something magical about a short story and the way a few pages can invoke an entire world. Over the last twelve months, I’ve read three wonderful single-author horror collections written by women: Skin Thief by Suzan Palumbo, Where Monsters Pray by Trisha J Wooldridge, and Love and Other Dead Things by Astrid Addams. If you would like to read my full reviews, you can find them on Ginger Nuts of Horror.
Palumbo’s style is unique and her prose is carefully layered, ensuring that these stories can be revisited many times to reveal new meanings. With themes of identity, racism, colonialism, homophobia, immigration, oppression and patriarchy, the personal and the political collide in Skin Thief as they do in life.
There are stories about mother and daughter relationships, being unable to fit in, conflicting identities, sibling rivalry, queerness, and the violence men inflict on the women they claim to love. One might say it’s an angry collection, but that would downplay the intricate beauty of each story, many of which end with at least a glimmer of hope. Palumbo breathes life into protagonists and antagonists alike, creating vibrant individuals with their own hopes and dreams, and who we care deeply about.
Where Monsters Pray by Trisha J Wooldridge
Throughout this collection, we are forced to see the world through the eyes of women who are victimised by society. Wooldridge refuses to protect us from her characters’ rage and pain. If anything she revels in our discomfort, while providing exceptional social commentaries and giving voices to those we might sooner silence and ignore.
The stand out stories for me were: “Heart of Frankenstein” which considers what might happen if Frankenstein’s Monster fell in love with a Nazi. “Swamp Gas and Faery Lights” where a trickster fairy discovers that human lives should not always be coveted. “Fixed” where science and magic collide. And “Gardens of New Bubastis” which is a heady cocktail of scientist playing God, class war and animal rights.
The stories are wonderfully queer in both senses of the word. I urge you to check it out. Trisha J. Wooldridge is one hell of a writer.
Love and Other Dead Things by Astrid Addams
This is an interesting and varied anthology. My favourite stories were “The Tower”, about an exhausted care-worker who attends an old female client in a reputedly haunted tower block; “Dead Men at Dead Man’s Cliff”, a bittersweet and unique tale, and “Love and Other Chainsaws” which is a haunting story and fully displays Addam’s mastery of her craft.
Many of the tales are incredibly graphic and harrowing and come without trigger warnings. Some are political in nature, exploring gender, sexuality, and contemporary concerns such as: the pandemic accelerating social decay, flammable cladding on tower blocks and council cutbacks.
Other blogs participating in October Frights this year
An Angell’s Life of Bookish Goodness
Reading Fiction Blog – Paula Cappa
Check out the October Frights Book Fair for your next read:
https://afstewart.ca/october-frights-book-fair/
And come back tomorrow for another horror-themed blog post.