Fen is on one hand ordinary. There's couples, sex, pubs, marriage. But within that, she weaves tales of magic and darkness, of inexplicable things, underpinned with something you understand. A longing, a need, that's ordinary, but works with the otherworldly. Many of these characters are young women and teenagers exploring the emotional and sexual power of their incipient womanhood. “There’s something about being a teenager – I remember it as being awful. I’m sure not everyone does, but it’s such a strange time. Everything you look at, all the little bits, like going to the pub, are really weird, because you’re going through this massive breakdown of person.” I know who you are though in a moment I will not. It is getting. I do not remember the word. Soon it will be. How easily they go again. There is no loyalty in language. There is no...” It’s not hard to imagine the flat, foreboding landscape of the Fens outside this circle, and the creeping water.

Two stories which stood out for me were “A bruise the Shape and Size of a Door Handle” where the house appeared to be jealous of the first love of the girl living in it; and “The Superstition of Albatross” about waiting without hope. Another story worth noting is ‘Starver” which is about a girl with anorexia and her sister. The story conveys the powerlessness of anyone to help her and it is deeply moving. However, I’ve seen very similar symbolism in “The Vegetarian” by Hang Kan. And there, it is more beautifully crafted and explored. There are hints of miracles and resurrection. I immediately thought of Colm Tóibín’s The Testament of Mary (see my review HERE). But this is darker than Tóibín’s novella, and without the explicitly Biblical framework, it’s more unknown and unknowable. University of Oxford (24 September 2018). "Alumna Daisy Johnson Shortlisted for Man Booker Prize 2018". Oxford University Department for Continuing Education . Retrieved 13 October 2018. It's a deeply disturbing story, and Johnson manages to create tension and suspense even after the women's unusual dietary practices are revealed. It's not a horror story that depends on a twist ending; Johnson prefers to lead with the ominous and make it even darker. Not many writers can pull that off. She can.She has been longlisted for the Sunday Times Short Story Award and the New Angle Award for East Anglian writing. She was the winner of the Edge Hill award for a collection of short stories and the AM Heath Prize. She can summon characters into being and fill them with life with astonishing concision and vigour (you are told relatively little about the figures who populate her book, but somehow you feel you know them intimately), and she is able to capture the world in constructions that are unusual, precise and often beautiful.

The distinctiveness of this collection is set from the first story – what at first seems to be a tale of teenage anorexia turns into a story of land drainage and transformation into an eel – and is followed by a story of men-eating women who are then possessed by the men they eat and then by a jealous house, and later by a new mother who experiences the visitation of a sailor’s superstition, and by a woman fashioned from the Fen earth and magical belief.Ik bots niet vaak op boeken waarin iets gebeurt wat niet in de realiteit kan gebeuren. Het genre van de fantasy zoek ik niet op, en aan de pure science fiction heb ik me nog niet vaak gewaagd. Toch komt er af en toe een boek op mijn pad waarvan ik lichtjes ga duizelen, omdat ik tijdens het lezen zaken zie gebeuren die ik niet voor mogelijk hield. The Romans were the first to drain the Fens, but it’s ongoing, never permanent: nature is strong. This opens with unexpected consequences of recent drainage: eels everywhere, but there’s something not quite right about them, nor with Katy’s sister - and there’s a connection. It explores identity, sisterhood, and transformation in a very similar way to Han Kang’s The Vegetarian (see my review HERE).