Yes, dear listener, today we should be doing lurchers, or supernatural fiction, or something else odd, but we are fortunate to have a hot-off-the-press review of Georgina Bruce’s new collection This House of Wounds (Undertow, 2019), by fellow author S L Edwards. So we ran with that, because it makes us look as if we’re hip, cool and ‘in the scene’. Like that’s ever going to be the case.

“This is an outstanding, important debut.”

We’ve been aware of Georgina’s powerful writing for a while, and met her at last year’s Fantasycon, where we were impressed by her thoughtful and incisive contributions to a panel, so much so that we had a brief chat afterwards. And she didn’t say “Go away, strange ragged old person,” or “Here’s 50p for a cup of tea,” which was a nice change. We were also impressed by her ace hair cut and colour, which is perhaps rather less relevant to the field of weird fiction. As we trim our own hair with blunt scissors when we can’t see properly, and would describe it as a ‘dumpster carpet colour’, we notice these things. Greydog himself has a forty year old ponytail which would make most self-respecting ponies seek asylum with another species.

Anyway, we at the kennels have been wowed by the book so far, but haven’t yet had time to finish it, so when Sam Edwards offered to share his first thoughts, we squealed “Yes.” We may add our pitiful, personal murmurs on the book in a later post, but here’s a great take on a very promising collection…

Her Body a Temple of Hurt

by S. L. Edwards

I don’t recommend reading Georgina Bruce’s This House of Wounds the way I did. During an early, short flight to Mexico City, I binged the entire collection. The prose is swift, melodic and pleasing. But the subject matter is another thing entirely, and since bingeing the collection I have not been able to shake it. This is an outstanding, important debut; I recommend readers pace themselves and take in the work, and consider what Bruce has to say, far more slowly than I did.

There is a robust debate these days about the utility of genre and genres. What is “literary” vs. “horror.” What is “slipstream” vs. what is “speculative.” Certain authors are more comfortable with genre and subgenre than others, and perhaps readers have grown more trusting of the presses that publish books vs. how they are shelved in stores and libraries.

All of this is to say that This House of Wounds is easily in the Weird-with-a-capital-W camp. There are elements of all sorts of genres and subgenres here. Science fiction, horror, a smattering of magical realism. And what is most remarkable about the collection is the way Bruce uses genre as a tool. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that she uses genre as an “approach,” an approach to explore the hyper-sexualization of women’s bodies and a culture of abuse that has and does dehumanize women.

The opening story is a prime example. “The Lady of Situations,” consists of a swirl of shifting, inconsistent memories. The protagonist of the story has been utterly destroyed, remade. Think perhaps of the Stepford Wives, the frightening idea that people could build, destroy or remake other people from the ground up. This is an idea revisited, at a slower pace, in “The Book of Dreems.” And while the theme of abuse is not the centerpiece of “Kuebiko,” it is another story where Bruce shows how the growth of technology could overtake people.

“Her Bones the Trees” is an even more brutal story. At least, it certainly twisted in my guts on my short flight:

“The woods are so beautiful,” she said.

“They’re full of dead girls.”

“That’s a horrible thing to say.”

“Oh no, don’t get me wrong. I’m agreeing with you.”

“Beautiful dead girls. Exquisite misogyny.”

The story concerns a director and his actress, and concerns the ever-growing and worrying trend of what I call with no small amount of disdain “torture porn.” The actress, portraying a woman who was raped and killed, begins to experience the role more intensely, and when the supernatural does intervene it is as a tsunami. The story is nightmarish and memorable, a glove of knives raked across the readers brain.

In a word, certainly not for the faint of heart.

“Cat World.”

Good Lord, “Cat World.” An absolutely devastating story about a young girl nearly swallowed alive by sex trafficking. “The Queen of Knives” is another brutal story concerning children, this time detailing the unnatural animosity between a mother and daughter.

Other stories explore trauma more generally, the loss of a loved one or the repercussions of a particularly horrible event. Stories like “White Rabbit,” “The Art of Flying,” and “The Shadow Men.” A final grouping of stories are something of extended prose-poems, where Bruce seems to let go of genre concerns and just write exquisite prose for the sake of exquisite prose. “Red Queening,” “Crow Voodoo,” and “The Seas of the Moon” are prime examples of stories where the trauma and abuse and horror coalesce to form things reminiscent of the most striking childhood fables. A melding of fantasy and horror that cautions against what people can do to each other, to hurt and to retaliate.

The result is one of the most impactful collections released this year, certainly one of the most powerful debuts in recent memory. These are stories of pain, dystopia and fantasy. They do not fit easily into one genre, but make delicate and careful use of nearly all of them. Some stories are lighter on plot than others, but I would hardly call this a detriment. Instead, Bruce makes good use of every digression to show us the horror of exactly how many dead girls are in the woods.

This House of Wounds is available now.

“An astonishing, totally absorbing debut collection. Edgy, disturbing and delicious in equal parts. Georgina Bruce plays with myth and horror beautifully.”
-Kerry Hadley-Pryce, Author of Gamble, and The Black Country

amazon uk