by Amelia Gray
First published 2019
A couple pays a young woman to crawl through the air ducts of their house. In another home, a family discovers a massive heart in their room and begins slicing it up. A giant snake splits a town in half, disrupting the daily lives of everyone who lives there. Two people who cannot have children turn to an extreme sacrifice. Gray places her characters in absurd situations driven by circumstance or their own recklessness. She cuts into the surreal and grotesque with surgical precision, crafting brief stories that pulse with humanity and dark humor. Magic collides with horror, sentimentality with violence. The stories fearlessly probe the most intimate depths of their characters. Gray blends elements from contemporary fiction, poetry, horror, fairy tales, thrillers, and science fiction into a collection unified by her distinctive style and imagination.
Genres: short-stories, literary-fiction, horror, magical-realism
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: absurd-situations, dark-humor, intimate-depths
208 pages · Paperback · Pidgin
Content warnings: body-horror, gore, graphic-violence