Fen

A few years ago, I read one of Daisy Johnson's novels, Everything Under and enjoyed it in an unsettling sort of way. There is something about her writing that is like looking out from a hiding place in the long grass as something terrible is beginning to happen.

Fen is her first collection of short stories published, and shows her potential and brilliant storytelling ability at that early stage. Her way of creating characters and unsettling circumstances is brilliant. These are ostensibly ghost stories set on the fen (or when not ghosts then vampire, or animated-clay-person, or others). Each deals with issues of vulnerability for women, taking a feminist telling of older types of horror story, with many also featuring pregnancy as a horror trope. Some are a little predictable in narrative, but have great characters. Others are just brilliant – the aforementioned clay person story in particular.

Like many short story books, there were some here I really enjoyed and others not so much, but there was plenty to entertain and interest across the many chapters.