Queer Horror Review: Thirteen of the Best, 2010-2020

From its inception, the horror genre has always been pretty queer, but it can be tricky to find a lot of recent examples. I wanted to find out what’s on offer now in queer horror, what new avenues writers are exploring. This year, I set myself a challenge to read as much queer horror from the last ten years as I could squeeze in and to review the books I enjoyed. The year is drawing to a close, so it’s time to take stock of what I’ve found. It’s time for a listicle.

This is a list of books I would recommend, but if you’re interested to see everything I’ve read, the (almost) full list is included in my Goodreads reading challenge. There are more details about the parameters of the challenge and who I am in my original post.

For a horror reading challenge, thirteen is the perfect number, so here are thirteen of the best queer (LGBTQIA+) horror books I could find published between 2010-2020.

Listed in reading order, not in order of preference. I’ll give my favourites at the end. I’ve included an excerpt of my review under each; you can click on the title for the full text.

A Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen

Wake of Vultures is a hybrid YA novel, blending western, horror, paranormal, fantasy and adventure genres. Nettie Lonesome lives on Mam and Pap’s farm as their adopted daughter, though they treat her no better than a slave. Everything changes when Nettie has to fight for her life against a monster. Her new-found ability to see the monsters all around her leads her on a quest for vengeance. If you like stories about cowboys fighting monsters, this is the novel for you.

The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy

After her friend’s suicide, Danielle Cain travels to Freedom, Iowa, the anarchist commune he’d called home, looking for some answers. There she finds a bloody protective spirit tasked with taking down those who abuse power. The beast seems to have turned on its summoners and all is not well in Freedom.

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

Seven year old Wen and her two dads, Eric and Andrew, are holidaying at a remote cabin in a New Hampshire forest when a group of four strangers arrive, bearing weird home-made weapons they claim are tools. They tell the family that they must choose one of them to be sacrificed willingly, or everyone else in the world will die. So begins a nightmare ordeal.

Agents of Dreamland by Caitlín R. Kiernan

The novella is a jigsaw of interconnecting points of view and fragments plucked from different points in time, a puzzle concerning the activities of a doomsday cult and the interactions of two agents sent to investigate by shadowy organisations in the US and UK.

The Devourers by Indra Das

The Devourers begins when Alok, a lonely academic in modern-day India, meets a man claiming to be half-werewolf. The story unfolds through scrolls the stranger has Alok transcribe, which take him back to the Mughal India of the Shah Jehan, following the lives of long-lived flesh eaters and the mortals they hunt and love.

The Vampire Gideon’s Suicide Hotline by Andrew Katz

A genuinely original take on an old favourite, with Gideon trying to redeem his undead existence by offering a suicide hotline to mortals in distress. The story takes us through many of his conversations with callers, including Margot, a teenage girl living with an abusive uncle, who Gideon decides to help beyond the hotline. The eccentric title suggests humour, and there is humour, but the book never shrinks away from tackling serious subject matter with frankness and respect, in a way that’s not overwhelming, leaving room for contemplation and even hope.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Ninth House childhood rivals Gideon and Harrow find themselves caught up in a deadly necromantic puzzle, the winner of which will become a Lyctor, an aide to the Emperor in his constant battle against threatening forces unknown. There’s plenty of death and treachery, but the book overall is surprisingly jolly for a tale of necromancy, thanks to its sardonic, take-no-shit narrator, Gideon, and an entertaining cast of weirdos and necro-geeks drawn from the empire’s nine houses.

The Drowning Girl by Caitlín R. Kiernan

When India Morgan Phelps (Imp to her friends) picks up a naked woman from the side of the road, her tentative grip on sanity is wrenched away. Or does that happen at all? Truth and fact are moving concepts in this Gothic tale of ghosts, mythology and madness.

A Spectral Hue by Laurance Gidney

A Spectral Hue is a weird ghost story for adults – either a short novel or long novella. Xavier, a post-graduate art student, visits the run-down coastal town of Shimmer to research the history of African-American folk artists inspired by the town’s strange marsh bell flower. The flower’s distinct purple-pink colour appears over and over, across different generations, in the varied art of local artists. From the moment Xavier first sees a quilt by Shimmer artist Hazel Whitby, he’s captivated. And Xavier’s not the only person to be held in thrall by the distinctive artworks and the colour that inspired them.

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

Raxter School for Girls has been under quarantine for eighteen months and supplies are scarce. There’s never enough to eat. Many girls and almost all the staff have died of disease or at the hands of the wild, mutated animals, which stalk the overgrown forest on quarantined Raxter island. The remaining girls have banded into small groups to take care of each other and only Headmistress and Miss Walsh remain of the staff.

One Bloody Thing After Another by Joey Comeau

This is an odd little adult horror novella about Jackie and Ann, teenage friends each dealing with some pretty grisly mother issues. Jackie’s mother died of cancer and now she reappears in moments of stress, still vomiting over the toilet bowl as she did in her final days. Jackie can’t stop getting into trouble, as she storms through life, a violent mix of yearning and rage. Ann’s mother lives in the basement now, howling and feasting on the flesh of living animals. Ann and her sister are struggling to find enough kittens to feed her.

The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson

1612, Pendle Hill, Lancashire. A poor, desperate rabble gather for what locals suspect is a dark sabbat. And then there’s wealthy, respectable Alice Nutter, who protects them on her land, who allows them to live in squalor in the notorious Malkin Tower. What’s the connection between Alice and the suspected witches? And with King James’s hunters on the prowl, why will she risk everything to protect them?

Bunny by Mona Awad

Samantha Heather Mackey loved writing until she won one of the limited and much sought-after places on Warren University’s MFA writing programme. Since then, she hasn’t been able to write much at all. Everything about the place sucks the life out of her, not least the group of women who share her tutorial group. Samantha’s named the saccharine-sweet clique the Bunnies, as that’s what they call each other: Bunny. If it weren’t for Warren drop out, Ava, Samantha would have gone crazy. But even though she’s repelled by them, the Bunnies fascinate her and, when she receives an invitation to one of their select gatherings, she’s drawn into their world.

Highlights

This is a list of recommendations, so I think all of them are worth a look, but some stand out more in retrospect. The Devourers by Indra Das is probably my favourite of all these stories and it pains me that this book has never been published in the UK. I had to buy a second-hand copy to read it. What Das does with the werewolf genre is beautiful, disturbing and thought-provoking in the best possible way. It’s available new in the US and India.

I loved the representation in A Spectral Hue most of all and I wish more queer fiction was as completely queer as this. I think there’s a leap a lot of queer writers have to make to give themselves permission to write queer characters. We can end up doing weird equations about how many queer characters we’re allowed, working out permitted ratios. There’s none of that here; instead, there’s a full cast of queer BIPOC characters, and I love it for that and for its weird inventiveness.  

Caitlín R. Kiernan is the only writer with two titles on this list. I discovered her writing through this challenge and I’m so glad I did. Her fragmentary storytelling really caught my imagination. Whilst Agents of Dreamland is only obliquely queer, I stand by its inclusion here. The Drowning Girl is overtly queer with both lesbian and trans characters.

A special mention goes to White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi, a masterful tale of a monster house fuelled by racism and xenophobia and the women it poisons. I discovered it was first published in 2009 when I opened the first page, so it falls outside the scope of this challenge, but it’s great and I can’t stop recommending it.

There’s humour and darkness in this list and so many inventive ways of using the horror genre to explore different facets of both human and queer experience. I think the horror genre, with its roots in stories of repressed desire, marginalisation, trauma, transgression and abjection, is uniquely placed to explore some facets of queer experience that other genres can’t or won’t touch. I hope, when we’ve glutted ourselves on happy endings, more publishers will consider taking a risk on the darker side of queer genre fiction.

Queer Book Club: Bunny by Mona Awad

The 13^th review for my Queer Horror Reading Challenge feels like a cause for celebration, so get out your tiny pink frosted cupcakes for Bunny by Mona Awad, a satirical horror novel for adults.

Samantha Heather Mackey loved writing until she won one of the limited and much sought-after places on Warren University’s MFA writing programme. Since then, she hasn’t been able to write much at all. Everything about the place sucks the life out of her, not least the group of women who share her tutorial group. Samantha’s named the saccharine-sweet clique the Bunnies, as that’s what they call each other: Bunny. If it weren’t for Warren drop out, Ava, Samantha would have gone crazy. But even though she’s repelled by them, the Bunnies fascinate her and, when she receives an invitation to one of their select gatherings, she’s drawn into their world.

This is a delightfully strange book, taking the old trope of sorority horror and running with it into bizarre new territory. It’s a twisting, twisted, often funny tale that becomes weirder as it progresses. The prose is assured and enjoyable; the plot feels fresh and unpredictable. I’m glad to have stumbled upon this unusual gem. I remember late at night catching old sorority horror films on TV as a kid and it’s always been one of my favourite tropes, with its heady mix of social claustrophobia and weird hazing rituals. Bunny doesn’t include a sorority, per se, but it’s got the same mixture that’s so enjoyable when it’s done well, as it is here.

As far as queer representation goes, Samantha is a dreamer and often seems detached from the life around her and her own desires. There’s also a fair amount of repressed emotion going on with all the characters. Samantha’s maybe bi, but whether she’d use that label for herself is another matter. She’s nowhere near that point. Bunny handles the desires and insecurities of the young women in an entirely transgressive way that blends social satire with bizarro horror elements, allowing for an exploration of the mess that is friendship and sexuality in a fresh and unpretentious way. Unlike the Bunnies.

I should stress, this is an odd book. It probably won’t be what you’re expecting, because it’s not quite like anything else. The somewhat trippy bizarro elements and unreliable narrator mean it won’t be for everyone, but it’s worth a look if any of the things I’ve mentioned above would float your boat. Unlike many stories about secret college societies, it’s genuinely surprising.

Queer Book Club: One Bloody Thing After Another by Joey Comeau

I took a break from my Queer Horror Reading Challenge to read the International Booker shortlist with some folk at the bookshop where I work, before the winner was announced. Not quite light summer reading, but it was good to dig into some good literary fiction. Here’s our cringey discussion on Youtube, if you’re interested (probably more cringey to me than anyone else).

Now, back to the queer horror with Joey Comeau’s One Bloody Thing After Another.

This is an odd little adult horror novella about Jackie and Ann, teenage friends each dealing with some pretty grisly mother issues. Jackie’s mother died of cancer and now she reappears in moments of stress, still vomiting over the toilet bowl as she did in her final days. Jackie can’t stop getting into trouble, as she storms through life, a violent mix of yearning and rage. Ann’s mother lives in the basement now, howling and feasting on the flesh of living animals. Ann and her sister are struggling to find enough kittens to feed her. Jackie has a crush on Ann. Neither of them is telling the other about their problems or their desires.

The whole story is delivered in a jaunty narration style, as if the narrator is greeting readers with a manic papered-on grin and assuring us Everything Is Fine, as one more horrible thing is piled on another. The style overlays dark humour on an otherwise bleak story, marrying absurdity to human tragedy in a union that Comeau somehow manages to pull off without it feeling tacky or exploitative. In some places, the casual tone with which horrible events are delivered adds to the shock.

This is a story about lost mothers and what Jackie and Ann will do to try to get back to them. The narrative pulse is pure hurt and trauma from start to finish, but with that vein of dark humour that pulls us through. It’s transgressive, sometimes in bad taste, often grisly, with an underlying truth that grounds it. I enjoyed the oddness of it, the unpredictability and the chaotic tumble of anger and horror that comes quickly and left me spinning, trying to pick up the pieces. A quick read that’s got a bit of wet, lightly gnawed meat to it.

Queer Book Club: White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

White is for Witching is a horror novel set in a haunted monster house, with queer and black characters. I picked it up as part of my Queer Horror Reading Challenge, but then realised it was published in 2009, which places it outside the scope of my challenge. However, I really enjoyed it, so I want to share a review here anyway. It would definitely be going on my list if it was within the time frame. I’m going to include some slight spoilers as to how the story progresses, but not anything about how it ends. It’s a difficult story to talk about without giving a little away.

I think the novel is aimed at an adult audience, though the main characters are older teens. It would be appropriate for either older teens or adults, with the warning that there’s very dark, unsettling subject matter in here, including an eating disorder, racism and racist attacks against immigrants.

The novel is set in Silver House in Dover, a large family home that’s been turned into a bed and breakfast by the family’s most recent members. Miranda and Eliot live there with their father, following the death of their mother overseas. The main focus of the story is Miranda, who suffers from an eating disorder called pica and is compelled particularly to eat chalk. Her late great-grandmother Anna Silver, or GrandAnna, as she was known, also had the disorder. GrandAnna’s presence looms large in the family’s history and is tied up inextricably with the house. Miranda’s grief at her mother’s death causes her to have a breakdown and, even after she comes home from a stay at a psychiatric hospital, she’s clearly not okay. Despite everything, Miranda wins a place at a Cambridge college and meets fellow student Ore. They fall in love, but Miranda’s health continues to decline. There are sections from Miranda’s point of view and from Eliot and Ore’s. There are even some sections from the point of view of the house.

The structure of the novel is non-linear and a little unusual. It begins at the end of the story, with testimony from Eliot and Ore, and then goes back and forward in time to tell the story of what happens to Miranda. I found the beginning disorienting, but soon became immersed in the family’s lives, so it’s definitely a story that’s worth sticking with beyond the first few pages. By the end of the novel, I wanted to read it all again, and did go straight back to those first few pages to see what clues they held in light of the rest of the story.

The location of the house in Dover isn’t an accident – it functions as a symbol of a certain sort of British insularity and racism. Miranda’s obsessive eating of white chalk seems to be a manifestation of the haunting that’s destroying her. Attacks on immigrants and immigrants held in detention are all going on as Miranda’s health declines – the house eats her as she eats up its poison. It’s an incredibly intense story, very sad, with the ever-present knowledge, as the story progresses, that Miranda still isn’t eating food.

The house itself is truly sinister, full of the ghosts of three generations of dead Silver women, who watch the living ghost of Miranda, each with different intentions. Silver House is up there with the great monster houses of the horror genre, its malevolent will stretching across generations as we slowly learn the true extent of its crimes.

White is for Witching is an uncomfortable read, both as a horror novel and a spotlight on the sickness of racism, but in the best way. Excellent queer horror.

Queer Book Club: A Spectral Hue by Craig Laurance Gidney

A Spectral Hue is a weird ghost story for adults – either a short novel or long novella. Xavier, a post-graduate art student, visits the run-down coastal town of Shimmer to research the history of African-American folk artists inspired by the town’s strange marsh bell flower. The flower’s distinct purple-pink colour appears over and over, across different generations, in the varied art of local artists. From the moment Xavier first sees a quilt by Shimmer artist Hazel Whitby, he’s captivated. And Xavier’s not the only person to be held in thrall by the distinctive artworks and the colour that inspired them.

This is a wonderful ghost story, with elements of Gothic, both in the ways it dances the line between sensuality and fear, and in its exploration of generational trauma. The prose is fluid and often beautiful and there’s a whole cast of queer black characters. There’s a real sense that Gidney cares deeply about his characters in a way that made me care about them too, from perfectionist Xavier, to grieving Iris, to wounded Linc, whose lives become entwined with Shimmer’s legacy and with each other. With deft pacing, we learn how each of the main characters came to be where they are, their strengths and their wounds, and the story of how racial trauma echoes down the generations. There’s solace and power in art, but also a grief that can overwhelm even the strongest person. The story offers no easy explanations or easy solutions, but a lot of complex humanity and satisfying speculative mystery.

If I’m going to be picky, my only real criticism of this story is it took me a while to get into the style of sliding back and forth in time with very little use of past perfect tense. I know it’s less popular in the US, but some here and there would have made for a smoother read for me in the beginning. Having said that, I stopped noticing a little way in, so I must have got used to the frequent temporal shifts. In the ebook edition I read, there were more than the average number of proofing errors – mostly missing words – but the fluid prose makes up for them. Hopefully later editions wil catch them.

This book is a treat for readers of queer fiction because there are so many great queer characters. Of the point of view characters, I especially enjoyed Iris, whose history of wrestling with a religious upbringing, a supernatural gift and a queer identity made for a rich and vivid narrative strand that managed to avoid all clichés. It’s also a book that takes speculative fiction seriously for the possibilities it presents. Going in, I wondered if the story might be a ‘Colour out of Space’ re-imagining, but it’s original in its take on the idea of a haunting colour and I was never able to fully predict where the story would take me.

Read as part of my Queer Horror Challenge – A Spectral Hue is more ghost story with hints of cosmic weirdness than full on horror, but it’s subtly unsettling with a whole ocean of darkness flowing under the surface. I’d definitely recommend it to horror fans.

Queer Book Club: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

I know I’m late to the party with this one, but I got here in the end and I’m glad I did. The book’s genre is hard to pin down, combining elements of fantasy, science fiction and horror into something that’s probably called dark space opera. Gideon the Ninth is set in a world of necromantic houses in service to an absent God Emperor Necrolord. Like Warhammer 40k without the hyper-masculinity – very much without it, as there’s gender equality and plenty of great female characters, including a female lead who is casually and unapologetically attracted to other women. It’s aimed at an adult audience, but the main characters are young and it would suit older teens who can handle darker content.

Ninth House childhood rivals Gideon and Harrow find themselves caught up in a deadly necromantic puzzle, the winner of which will become a Lyctor, an aide to the Emperor in his constant battle against threatening forces unknown. There’s plenty of death and treachery, but the book overall is surprisingly jolly for a tale of necromancy, thanks to its sardonic, take-no-shit narrator, Gideon, and an entertaining cast of weirdos and necro-geeks drawn from the empire’s nine houses.

The story is pacey, with plot twists and action constantly pulling the story forward. It’s good genre fun, not too deep, but a real joy to read – exactly what my pandemic-addled brain is in the mood for right now. There are horror elements in the form of an unknown threat stalking the ancient palace long abandoned by the First House, and some intriguing undead monsters.

This is not a story for people who like lots of space devoted to explicit world build, because Muir very much throws readers in at the deep end. It’s also not for people driven insane by anachronistic speech styles, because the dialogue is very present-day-millennial. However, Gideon’s voice is strong and really carries the narrative. It’s not perfect – there’s something about the way scenery is described that I struggled with at times and the prose is a bit rough around the edges in a few places, but there’s so much to like here that I found I didn’t care. It’s one of those stories that dragged me in, transported me to another place and didn’t let me go.

I read this as part of my Queer Horror Reading Challenge and would definitely recommend it for people who are looking for a lighter read with a dark aesthetic. That’s lighter as measured against the other horror I’ve covered in this challenge – there are still plenty of deaths and murders and monstrous bone constructs, but there’s also the fun of a writer clearly revelling in her subject matter.

Queer Book Club: The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

The Night Watch is an adult historical fiction novel with four point of view characters; it begins in 1947 and goes back in time, through 1944, to 1941. I adored Fingersmith, so I’ve no idea why it’s taken me so long to pick up another of Waters’ books. I’m glad I did.

This book was first published in 2006 – not a new one, but new to me. It reads beautifully and I found myself immediately immersed in the world of post-war Britain. The backwards chronology has the effect of creating a puzzle out of the characters’ pasts, but for me that wasn’t the most intriguing factor about moving back in time, but rather the ways we see the characters as almost different people at different times and so clearly shaped by their circumstances. Some thrive in the war, others are nearly destroyed by it – none of the narratives are obvious, they all hold surprises and challenge reader assumptions, and catching myself making those assumptions added another level of interest to the story.

The narrative is split between Kay, Helen, Viv and her brother Duncan. Kay thrives in wartime, where her traditionally male clothing and dynamic ambulance driving are welcomed. Post-war, Kay is broken by the loss of her role and the loss of her lover to a wartime romance. Helen is her ex-lover, an outwardly calm and confident woman who is overwhelmed by insecurities and jealousy in private. Viv is another who indulged in a wartime romance, but with a married man. After the war, she can’t seem to move on with her life. Duncan is sensitive and vulnerable, drawn to more forceful personalities who can easily overwhelm him. I’m wary of saying a lot about Duncan’s story for fear of giving away spoilers, as I think his is the storyline with the most unexpected twists and perhaps the most complicated personal relationships. My enjoyment was very much enhanced by being completely in the dark about the ins and outs of the characters’ pasts, so I won’t give more away.

The book is a feast of queer representation, with varied complex and nuanced characterisations and relationships. There’s a really beautiful subtlety to the observations of how people are shaped by time and place, and by those around them. Some really stunning historical scene-setting adds to the atmosphere. There are also many astute observations about the clash of personal gender expression, gender roles and societal pressures.

Looking at my back catalogue of reviews, it will be obvious I’ve a weak spot for quality historical fiction, and this definitely ticks my boxes on that front. I particularly appreciate queer historical fiction, given the straight-washing of much history and fiction. I would unreservedly recommend this book and will definitely be picking up more Sarah Waters.

Queer Book Club: Proxy by Alex London

As promised, it’s a Queer Book Club review!

Proxy is a young adult science fiction novel set in a dystopian future where the poor pay off their debts by acting as whipping boys for the children of the rich. And when everything costs money – from your care as an orphan, to your education, essential tech and healthcare – debt is impossible to avoid, as the main character, Syd, has found. Syd is a proxy for Knox, the son of a wealthy Patron, head of the biggest security company. And Knox has some serious daddy issues that land Syd in constant trouble. Then Knox crashes his car and kills someone and the boys must go on the run if Syd is to survive.

I originally picked this book up for my (12 year old) son, but it turned out to be a bit old for him, so I read it instead. I enjoyed that it felt like proper sci-fi, not romance with a sci-fi skin. The main character is gay, but there’s not even a whiff of romantic sub-plot. Knox is possibly pansexual, though that’s not 100% clear. The book is extremely fast paced – most of it is some sort of chase scene – and the characters don’t have time for anything on the side. I was cool with the matter-of-fact handling of Syd’s sexuality and that it was a part of his story, but not the whole story. However, the pacing did feel a little too fast in places, for me at least, keeping in mind I’m not the target audience. I’d have liked more time to get to know the characters in between them escaping their certain doom. I enjoyed Syd and Knox’s interaction and watching them grow, but I could have handled a lot more of that.

Another positive for me was the treatment of debt in this world. I’ve not seen that really tackled head on as a main theme and this book certainly brings home the soul-crushing nature of unavoidable debt and extreme economic inequality in a very timely manner. The world is dark and violent, so it’s at the older end of the YA age spectrum.

The main plot doesn’t really get going properly until halfway through, as Syd starts off clueless about a lot of things, and there was a point after that where I wasn’t totally sure the plot makes sense (I’m still not), but I decided to roll with it and carry on. Without spoilering, it edges into chosen-one territory, which isn’t my favourite thing, but I understand it is a big thread running through a lot of YA.

I should warn anyone thinking of picking up a copy that the ending doesn’t pull its punches, so if you like your endings happy, be warned. I haven’t picked up the sequel yet, so I can’t comment on that. I expect I will one day as I’m curious to see how the plot falls out. I’d say this is worth reading for the themes it presents and if you’d like to read a YA sci-fi novel with a gay character and no romance, which, let’s face it, is pretty rare. But it’s definitely one for people who favour action over character.

Short Story: Falling, Parts 1-4

I’ve posted all four parts of my new short story, “Falling,” on Medium. Here’s a short excerpt from the beginning and a friend link to all parts below, so you can read them for free if you’re not a Medium member.

His body stretches across the Cour Napoleon, surrounded by the rubble his fall has made, the cracked stone and concrete. If he moves a leg, his foot will crash through the glass pyramid, but he’s still. He must move. He must shrink his vast body to fit the proportions of the mortal world. But he can’t find the will required. A light breeze ruffles the feathers of his wings.

Few in the crowds of tourists can bear it. Some have fallen to their knees and are openly weeping in the street. Most turn away, gather up their loved ones and return home, or the closest haven they can find. One or two hardened souls point their iPhones at him. He sheds tears for them, for their lost awe and wonder, these maimed souls. His tears puddle beneath his face.

A hand touches his arm. A small hand, but he knows it doesn’t belong to a human.

“Gabriel.”

Here are Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4. There are also friend links within each part that you can use to navigate by. I hope you enjoy the story.

Check out the hosting publication, The Mad River, for stories and poems of magic and madness. They have a Dark and Holy Writing Challenge coming up.

Queer Book Club: What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell

What Belongs to You is (adult) gay contemporary fiction. It’s taken me a little while to review this one as I needed to let it settle. It’s a tough read, not because of the style or the length—it’s a fairly short novel and elegantly written—but because watching the main character manhandle their emotions and cycle through their self-loathing is difficult to witness. If those don’t sound like things you want to read about, this isn’t the book for you.

The story is about an American teacher living in Sofia, who starts an on-off relationship with a young sex worker, Mitko. The narrator (who I don’t think is ever named) becomes fixated with Mitko, but their relationship is always an uneasy one, complicated by the narrator’s self-loathing and their uneven economic status. As the story unfolds it becomes clear that the narrator is far from easy with himself, that likely every decision he’s made in adulthood has been complicated by feelings left over from his childhood and his father’s rejection of his sexuality. I thought the emotional layering was well done. The way the narrator constantly fails to make the best choices for himself creeps up on you with slow frustration and then begins to make sense when more of his past is revealed.

The only thing I didn’t get on with, and this is more a visual discomfort thing for me, is that there are no paragraphs in the middle section of the novel. It’s a retrospective section about the narrator’s adolescence and his complicated relationship both with his own sexuality and with his father. Whilst perhaps the format reflects that mire of emotions, it made my eyes hurt and I’m not grateful for that.

Overall, this is a fairly heavy read, but it’s worth it for Greenwell’s handling of the ways our past shapes our present. I like the unreliable narrator and I’m interested in the ways we lie to ourselves about our own emotions. I also like a book that pulls the reader into the atmosphere and emotion, even if it is uncomfortable. It’s a book that leaves readers the space to do some working out for themselves and I think it’s worth the effort.