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Parallel Hells

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A glorious collection of short stories that reads as if Edgar Allan Poe and Shirley Jackson had a little queer baby.

Part-way through the narrative of this story, the page splits and we are presented with two characters’ perspectives running parallel down the page. One thing that drew me to this book as soon as I picked it up was reading in the blurb that it had a story in about golems, which are one of my favourite mythological creatures. Raw pork and opium has one of the more interesting styles of writing explored however the context of the story leaves you going.The characters in the novel are eager to observe others, but refuse to see themselves, even when staring into mirrors. While Craig has filled this book with recognizable horror elements, she seems to be telling us that the most spine-chilling thing is the everyday human experience. Shockingly, those being observed are just as capable of looking directly back through the hole that promised unfettered anonymity.

In his seventh book, A Shock, Keith Ridgway is like a croupier, shuffling together southeast London lives and doling them out to the reader. A lot of stories here as well as being surreal fantasy horror pieces involve resolutions of this kind of inner conflict by the protagonist.I found the best stories were the ones that were a little longer, because they gave Craig a chance to flex her impressive writing muscles and created more space for her examination of the human condition through these surreal vibes. Probably shouldn’t have been reading this at 1:30am now I don’t wanna sleep hahaha full review to come! The author uses unfinished 'endings' too often where the reader sits and goes "Wtf was that supposed to mean? It is such a fresh and playful approach to storytelling that you cannot help but be totally enamoured with Craig’s abilities. They're such a simple concept that you can use to explore some really interesting and deep questions about things like slavery, heritage, free will, ownership.

As the cast develops, new characters appear in the peripheries of each other’s narratives, but are blurred and distorted.By turns dark, sharp, witty and tender, I'm a huge fan of Leon Craig's writing, and the way she reveals the complex dance of beauty and brutality in our innermost, most vulnerable selves. Overall, the longer of the stories worked the best, allowing Craig to get into their stride and flesh out characters to their fullest potential, without losing the tension and the mystery of the unseen crucial to a great gothic tale. Even when Yves introduces himself later in the narrative as Michael, the eerie character of “Stoker” is indelible, a second skin we can’t peel away.

The last story, Saplings, was definitely my favourite, along with The Bequest, No Dominion, Hags and Lick the Dust.All the stories contained within the pages of Parallel Hells were a huge hit for me, there wasn’t a story I disliked or felt bored by, and I felt greatly entertained while reading. raw pork and opium: 2 stars, I liked the 2 parallel perspectives up until the girl had sex with her friend because he suddenly had boobs and then told him that she did not want him and was the other part a metaphor for how gay the two men are for each other? Tommy talks about the fear of getting stuck and jamming “like a piece of wood you stick in a wall or something. In the thirteen darkly audacious stories of Parallel Hells we meet a golem, made of clay, learning that its powers far exceed its Creator's expectations; a ruined mansion which grants the secret wishes of a group of revellers and a notorious murderer who discovers her Viking husband is not what he seems. In one story, titled “raw pork and opium,” a character re-applies her lipstick in the only reflective surface to be found “the kitchen knife we used to rack up lines.

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