speculative fiction, but not horror. it’s about death – but in a humorous way, not too heavy. cryogenics, the afterlife, bereavement and loss… loved chris adrian’s THE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL published by mcsweeney’s back in ‘06, this one is good too. clever & propulsive, strange & sad.
original novel by lina wolff came out in Swedish in 2019. creepily, its title was “köttets tid” ie the time of the flesh or the time of the meat — tid being Swedish for time. lovely.
so much dark stuff in this: an old man with dementia, whose young & devoted wife refuses give up on his care, his quality of life… a young man who confesses to having cheated on his wife. (like, so much cheating.) a reality TV show that exists only on the fringes of the internet. (i’m sure you’re already imagining how dangerous that could be.) a sort of? accidental murder while on holiday. a series of strangely justified mercy killings. the spanish civil war. a charming butcher-nun of tiny stature with a thrilling backstory <3
CARNALITY = horror story perfection, equal parts psychological + body horror
nightmarish tableaus. scorchingly vivid images, stuff that burns itself into the mental retinas. (the abattoir…! — but i won’t say more.) stunning-beautiful prose, on all the themes: animal cruelty, maternal love, moral uncertainty. but always beautiful. artistic. original prose. the kind of sentences and descriptions that feed the soul.
this is the real literature, yo. it did everything for me. so complex. unsettling. enthralling. for comparison lina wolff is a lot like, and probably good as, ottessa moshfegh. xxx bookworm
oghi wakes up in a hospital, unable to move or speak. his mother-in-law is the only family he has left. his life is changed forever – now he’s reliant on her care. and she has reason to resent him.
hye-young pyun writes so fucking beautifully. the intensity of her details. the unfolding of successive secrets — the way layers of the story keep peeling back & peeling back. shit, she keeps you in SUCH a state of painful, squirmy suspense. her dark imagination is everything. this book is ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING.
xxx bookworm
