Sometimes after a breakup you just have to set out on a Victor Frankenstein-esque path to avoid yet another rebound and also to avoid your PhD thesis. Plus that romance is queer! The first queer story of the collection. It also has a soft romance that just perfectly balances the gloom of being awake forever, no matter how tired you get. It's about a world where one day peoples' sleep just leaves, lifts from their bodies and becomes a new figure that follows them throughout their now never-ending wakefulness. This is one of the softer stories in the collection, full of longing more than abject terror. It introduces you to Armfield's writing style, which is evocative and bone-chilling, and also sets the tone for these stories of horror and surrealism that center on women. This story about puberty and changes you can't go back from is incredibly haunting and it is a perfect introduction to the rest of the collection. Terrifying and engaging in a way that's impossible to look away from.
If you were waiting for a more in-depth look at these stories and what I thought of them then I'm glad you're here reading this. I heartily recommend it.Įyyy, updating with longer story reviews a hot month after reading this. Not to mention, multiple stories in this unsettling collection are about queer women and queer relationships. It’s my favorite short story collection that I’ve ever read and I’m already eager to get my hands on whatever Armfield writes next. This is equal parts horrific and beautiful, tragic and grotesque, dark and divine. 'Armfield is an enormous, gut-wrenching talent.Longer review to come with a more detailed review of each story.
A distinct new gothic, melancholy, powerful and poised.' – China Miéville, author of The City & The City Winner of The White Review Short Story Prize 2018, Armfield is a writer of sharp, lyrical prose and tilting dark humour – S alt Slow marks the arrival of an ambitious and singular new voice. Blurring the mythic and the gothic with the everyday, S alt Slow considers characters in motion – turning away, turning back or simply turning into something new entirely. The mundane worlds of schools and sleepy sea-side towns are invaded and transformed, creating a landscape which is constantly shifting to hold on to its inhabitants. Teenagers develop ungodly appetites, a city becomes insomniac overnight, and bodies are diligently picked apart to make up better ones. In her brilliantly inventive and haunting debut collection of stories, Julia Armfield explores the body, mapping the skin and bones of her characters through their experiences of isolation, obsession, love and revenge. 'Wickedly clever prose and a sense of humour that seems to loom up like a character in itself' – M John Harrison, Guardian
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