A Darker Shade of Noir

July 15, 2023
In this haunting new collection, edited by Oates, 15 women writers explore the manifold horrors of living (and dying) in a patriarchal society. Divided into three parts--"You've Created a Monster," "Morbid Anatomy," and "Out of Body, Out of Time"--this collection may initially appeal to readers eager for tales filled with vampires and werewolves, influences from beyond the grave, and gore, guts, and ooze. They will not be disappointed. However, the stories not only bleed across the categorical boundaries they have been assigned, but also expand the scope of what is terrifying about the body--living or dead, human or nonhuman--in the first place. Some stories lean into the visceral imagery typical of the body horror genre. In "Muzzle," Cassandra Khaw explores the terrors of transforming from a human into a werewolf: feeling muscle, bone, teeth, and primal urges realigning inside oneself. Similarly, Aimee LaBrie's "Gross Anatomy" and Valerie Martin's "Nemesis" attend to the body's bumps, scabs, and pus (though both stories dip into ableist territory by presenting illness as a moral punishment). Other stories, however, like Margaret Atwood's "Metempsychosis, or The Journey of the Soul," focus more on existential terrors. Through the point of view of a snail whose soul has been ripped from its body and transplanted into that of a human woman, Atwood taps into the fears surrounding not only mortality, but also bodily misalignment, confinement, existential dread, and not being recognized for who you really are. "To be female," Oates writes in her introduction, "is to inhabit a body that is by nature vulnerable to forcible invasion, susceptible to impregnation." In the pages that follow, not only men and offspring, but also the desires of the dead, the societal expectations of the living, powerful weapons, self-doubts, and new souls creep into the bodies of women characters, taking up space. Yet the women are not entirely powerless. In "Breathing Exercise," Raven Leilani's protagonist, Myriam, works to tease apart the criticism she faces for her performance art, the violence with which men threaten her, and her own relationship to her body and work as a Black woman artist. For Myriam, power, pain, fear, and vulnerability do not exist in static relationships to one another--nor do they in many of the stories in this collection. A bold collection of horror stories that flies in the face of both gender and genre conventions.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 1, 2023
In this anthology of short stories by famous women writers such as Margaret Atwood, Cassandra Khaw, and Tananarive Due, editor Oates explores body horror. She writes in her introduction that body horror speaks to the female body, as the male patriarchy accuses women of being too arousing or not feminine enough. Within these stories lies the discomfort so many females have with their own bodies. This is evident in Atwood's story, "Metempsychosis or The Journey of the Soul," where a snail finds itself body-swapped with a young woman. The woman in Aimee Bender's story, "Frank Jones," who is a loner and considered odd by her coworkers, creates a mini Frankenstein, a doll with its own agenda, out of growths on her body. In "Malena," by Joanna Margaret, the lead character learns of a parasitic twin wanting to get out of her body. In Raven Leilani's "Breathing Exercises," a Black, female performance artist abuses herself in front of mostly white audiences to show what the body can handle. Those looking for horror stories with a feminist spin will love the combination of talent in this book.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 31, 2023
For this chilling anthology, Oates (Extenuating Circumstances) brings together 15 stories exploring body horror through women’s experiences. In Aimee Bender’s “Frank Jones,” an office loner creates a tiny golem from her own shed skin tags that helps maintain the boundaries between herself and her horrified coworkers, while in Joanna Margaret’s “Malena” an art student gives life to her own “parasitic twin.” Margaret Atwood’s “Metempsychosis, or the Journey of the Soul” is concerned with the soul of a slain snail that possesses the brain of a bank employee, creating a snail-human hybrid consciousness that struggles to adapt to modern life. “Dancing” by Tananarive Due, one of the collection’s standouts, follows a woman who, upon the death of the grandmother she’s spent two decades caring for, loses control of her body in fits of unruly dancing. Oates has a broad take on the body horror subgenre, and while some stories use the anthology’s premise to devastating advantage, others don’t quite fit the bill, including “Scarlet Ribbons” by Megan Abbott and “Breathing Exercises” by Raven Leilani. Still, the thematic probe into bodily autonomy makes this a must-read for fans of feminist horror. Agent: Warren Frazier, John Hawkins & Assoc.