Halloween Reading
Oct. 23rd, 2019 03:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhLittle Darlings by Melanie Golding. A horror/thriller set in England's Peak District. Lauren has just given birth to twin boys and is understandably exhausted and drugged on pain medication. She's also coming to the realization that her husband is a selfish asshole more interested in his beauty sleep than in helping to care for their children; there's never a good time for a relationship to fall apart, but immediately post-birth is especially bad. So when Lauren begins to experience things straight out of a medieval fairy tale – a witchy woman with a basketful of strange eel children, creepy folk songs about mothers abandoning their babies, smells of river mud and fish – perhaps it's understandable that she can find no one who believes her. Matters get worse when the mysterious woman manages to switch their babies, leaving Lauren with a pair of changelings who look exactly like her former children. Golding does an excellent job of describing their eerie and frightening traits enough to scare the reader without ever going over the line of being unbelievable that no other character would notice that something is wrong.
Alternative chapters switch the viewpoint to police detective Joanna Harper, the only person who takes Lauren's account seriously, though even Harper has to fight against disbelief and a boss who's overly concerned about their budget. Harper is also engaged in an awkward flirtation with reporter Amy, which was absolutely a welcome surprise; I always love it when I happen across unexpected lesbians in my reading.
Little Darlings isn't the scariest or most complex book I've ever read, but Golding does a good job of mixing the folklore with the modern setting and keeping up the tension. Much of the book balances on the edge of "is Lauren crazy or is she right?" and the writing handles that well. If I have a complaint, it's that Little Darlings uses psychiatric medicines and psychiatric hospitals as a threat and a punishment, a desolate fate Lauren is banished to when no one believes her about the changelings, rather than a source of help for many people. But that's such a ubiquitous problem in horror that it's hardly worth singling out Little Darlings.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, translated from Argentinian Spanish by Megan McDowell. A novella with a strange, nearly incomprehensible, plot and an absolutely compelling style. The entire thing is told as a dialogue between Amanda, who is dying in a cheap hospital bed, and David, the young son of her neighbor. Amanda is trying to tell what seems to be a fairly mundane story (her vacation to the countryside, the slightly odd behavior of her rental house's next door neighbors, her worry that her daughter Nina will have some accident in this new place) while David continually interrupts, trying to hurry her on to the important part and dropping inexplicable yet terrifying details (the two voices are distinguished throughout by italics):
They're like worms.
What kind of worms?
Like worms, all over.
It's the boy who's talking, murmuring into my ear. I am the one asking questions.
Worms in the body?
Yes, in the body.
Earthworms?
No, another kind of worms.
It's dark and I can't see. The sheets are rough, they bunch up under my body. I can't move, but I'm talking.
It's the worms. You have to be patient and wait. And while we wait, we have to find the exact moment when the worms come into being.
Why?
Because it's important, it's very important for us all.
I try to nod, but my body doesn't respond.
What else is happening in the yard outside the house? Am I in the yard?
No, you're not, but Carla, your mother, is. I met her a few days ago, when we first got to the vacation house.
What is Carla doing?
She finishes her coffee and leaves the mug in the grass, next to her lounge chair.
What else?
Even now, having finished it, I'm not entirely sure what happened or what it means (the horror is clearly related to the toxic misuse of pesticides, but the details are never clarified, and there also is maybe something supernatural going on), but I'm not sure that matters when the story is this thrillingly told. Fever Dream is incredibly hard to tear yourself away from once you've begun reading; every line of it barrels onwards in a rush that never gives up or relaxes. Highly recommended for anyone who doesn't mind some ambiguity in their fiction.
Alternative chapters switch the viewpoint to police detective Joanna Harper, the only person who takes Lauren's account seriously, though even Harper has to fight against disbelief and a boss who's overly concerned about their budget. Harper is also engaged in an awkward flirtation with reporter Amy, which was absolutely a welcome surprise; I always love it when I happen across unexpected lesbians in my reading.
Little Darlings isn't the scariest or most complex book I've ever read, but Golding does a good job of mixing the folklore with the modern setting and keeping up the tension. Much of the book balances on the edge of "is Lauren crazy or is she right?" and the writing handles that well. If I have a complaint, it's that Little Darlings uses psychiatric medicines and psychiatric hospitals as a threat and a punishment, a desolate fate Lauren is banished to when no one believes her about the changelings, rather than a source of help for many people. But that's such a ubiquitous problem in horror that it's hardly worth singling out Little Darlings.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, translated from Argentinian Spanish by Megan McDowell. A novella with a strange, nearly incomprehensible, plot and an absolutely compelling style. The entire thing is told as a dialogue between Amanda, who is dying in a cheap hospital bed, and David, the young son of her neighbor. Amanda is trying to tell what seems to be a fairly mundane story (her vacation to the countryside, the slightly odd behavior of her rental house's next door neighbors, her worry that her daughter Nina will have some accident in this new place) while David continually interrupts, trying to hurry her on to the important part and dropping inexplicable yet terrifying details (the two voices are distinguished throughout by italics):
They're like worms.
What kind of worms?
Like worms, all over.
It's the boy who's talking, murmuring into my ear. I am the one asking questions.
Worms in the body?
Yes, in the body.
Earthworms?
No, another kind of worms.
It's dark and I can't see. The sheets are rough, they bunch up under my body. I can't move, but I'm talking.
It's the worms. You have to be patient and wait. And while we wait, we have to find the exact moment when the worms come into being.
Why?
Because it's important, it's very important for us all.
I try to nod, but my body doesn't respond.
What else is happening in the yard outside the house? Am I in the yard?
No, you're not, but Carla, your mother, is. I met her a few days ago, when we first got to the vacation house.
What is Carla doing?
She finishes her coffee and leaves the mug in the grass, next to her lounge chair.
What else?
Even now, having finished it, I'm not entirely sure what happened or what it means (the horror is clearly related to the toxic misuse of pesticides, but the details are never clarified, and there also is maybe something supernatural going on), but I'm not sure that matters when the story is this thrillingly told. Fever Dream is incredibly hard to tear yourself away from once you've begun reading; every line of it barrels onwards in a rush that never gives up or relaxes. Highly recommended for anyone who doesn't mind some ambiguity in their fiction.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-24 02:18 am (UTC)Okay, neat.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-25 06:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-25 08:14 pm (UTC)It's usually all loam and dead leaves. Eel-babies are great.