Scotland / British Literature – Short Stories – published 2023
This is a strong collection that explores a more mundane side of horror. They are absurdist, bizarre little stories, full of gothic charm, horror, and ghosts. Grudova’s style is quite unique, she set the tone in her first book, [book:Children of Paradise|60450976], but some of the stories here are better than that; delightfully unpleasant.
It’s a book if two distinct halves, the first portraying a nightmarish vision of Britain. In the first story, Through Ceilings and Walls, she begins with a microcosm of rural Britain, a foreign traveler visits an island nation and witnesses a culture so different that he can barely accept it. The island is a sinister parody of Britain, haunted by paintings and curios depicting the royal family, with revolting and rotten food, ruined buildings, and a green slime that seems alive. Description and History of a British Swimming Pool / Banya Banya!, tells of the worst bath house in the world, where all sorts of crazy behaviour goes on. Margate features in several stories, and adds to the dark humour Grudova creates.
In the second half the stories are about residences, but outside Britain. They aren’t as strong as in the first half. White Asparagus is set in a fantastical apartment with a living ancestral plaque that eats jam, windows are covered with wallpaper, and mushrooms grow from the floor. Hoo Hoo concerns a dystopia in which heinous owl/human hybrids patrol the skies, and any humans that remain alive are obsessed with starting a “museum.”
There’s enough here to show Grudova’s clear talent, and more so than in her first book. She presents a different sort of horror, lighter, preposterous, humorous and extremely readable.
My GoodReads score 4 / 5
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