{"id":6176,"date":"2019-11-19T15:04:33","date_gmt":"2019-11-19T15:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/?p=6176"},"modified":"2019-11-19T15:04:33","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T15:04:33","slug":"georgina-bruce-her-body-a-temple-of-hurt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/georgina-bruce-her-body-a-temple-of-hurt\/","title":{"rendered":"Georgina Bruce: Her Body a Temple of Hurt"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/strong><\/span>\u2019s new collection This House of Wounds<\/em> (Undertow, 2019), by fellow author S L Edwards<\/strong>. So we ran with that, because it makes us look as if we\u2019re hip, cool and \u2018in the scene\u2019. Like that\u2019s ever going to be the case.<\/p>\n

\"georgina<\/a><\/h4>\n

“This is an outstanding, important debut.”<\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n

We\u2019ve been aware of Georgina\u2019s powerful writing for a while, and met her at last year\u2019s 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\u2019t say \u201cGo away, strange ragged old person,\u201d or \u201cHere\u2019s 50p for a cup of tea,\u201d 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\u2019t see properly, and would describe it as a \u2018dumpster carpet colour\u2019, we notice these things. Greydog<\/em> himself has a forty year old ponytail which would make most self-respecting ponies seek asylum with another species.<\/p>\n

Anyway, we at the kennels have been wowed by the book so far, but haven\u2019t yet had time to finish it, so when Sam Edwards offered to share his first thoughts, we squealed \u201cYes.\u201d We may add our pitiful, personal murmurs on the book in a later post, but here\u2019s a great take on a very promising collection\u2026<\/p>\n

Her Body a Temple of Hurt<\/h1>\n

by S. L. Edwards<\/h3>\n

I don\u2019t recommend reading Georgina Bruce\u2019s <\/span>This House of Wounds <\/i><\/span>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 bing<\/span>e<\/span>ing 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 <\/span>more slowly<\/span> than I did. <\/span><\/p>\n

There is a robust debate these days about the utility of genre and genres. What is \u201cliterary\u201d vs. \u201chorror.\u201d What is \u201cslipstream\u201d vs. what is \u201cspeculative.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

All of this is to say that <\/span>This House of Wounds <\/i><\/span>is <\/span>easily <\/i><\/span>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 <\/span>tool<\/i><\/span>. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that she uses genre as an \u201capproach,\u201d an approach to explore the hyper-sexualization of women\u2019s bodies and a culture of abuse that has and does dehumanize women. <\/span><\/p>\n

The opening story is a prime example. \u201cThe Lady of Situations,\u201d 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 \u201cThe Book of Dreems.\u201d And while the theme of abuse is not the centerpiece of \u201cKuebiko,\u201d it is another story where Bruce shows how the growth of technology could overtake people.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer Bones the Trees\u201d is an even more brutal story. At least, it certainly twisted in my guts on my short flight:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe woods are so beautiful,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re full of dead girls.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a horrible thing to say.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cOh no, don\u2019t get me wrong. I\u2019m agreeing with you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cBeautiful dead girls. Exquisite misogyny.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/i>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 \u201ctorture porn.\u201d 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. <\/span><\/p>\n

In a word, certainly not for the faint of heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cCat World.\u201d<\/p>\n

Good Lord, \u201cCat World.\u201d An absolutely devastating story about a young girl nearly swallowed alive by sex trafficking. \u201cThe Queen of Knives\u201d is another brutal story concerning children, this time detailing the unnatural animosity between a mother and daughter.<\/p>\n

Other stories explore trauma more generally, the loss of a loved one or the repercussions of a particularly horrible event. Stories like \u201cWhite Rabbit,\u201d \u201cThe Art of Flying,\u201d and \u201cThe Shadow Men.\u201d 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. \u201cRed Queening,\u201d \u201cCrow Voodoo,\u201d and \u201cThe Seas of the Moon\u201d are prime examples of stories where the trauma and abuse and horror coalesce to form things reminiscent of the most <\/span>striking<\/span> childhood fables. A melding of fantasy and horror that cautions against what people can do to each other, to hurt and to retaliate. <\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\n

This House of Wounds<\/em> is available now.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a>amazon uk<\/a><\/p>\n

amazon us<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\"laura<\/a>We covered Laura Mauro<\/strong>\u2019s powerful debut collection, also from Undertow, recently here:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/laura-mauro-sacrifice-and-transformation\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And we ran an interview with S L Edwards<\/strong> about his new collection Whiskey and Other Unusual Ghosts (G&H, 2019) here:<\/p>\n

QUIET AND WRITHING HORRORS FOR ALL TASTES<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n