SALT SLOW – JULIA ARMFIELD

In her brilliantly inventive and haunting debut collection of stories, Julia Armfield explores the body, mapping the skin and bones of her characters through their experiences of isolation, obsession, love and revenge. Wickedly clever prose and a sense of humour that seems to loom up like a character in itself – M John Harrison, Guardian Teenagers develop ungodly appetites, a city becomes insomniac overnight, and bodies are diligently picked apart to make up better ones. The mundane worlds of schools and sleepy sea-side towns are invaded and transformed, creating a landscape which is constantly shifting to hold on to its inhabitants. Blurring the mythic and the gothic with the everyday, Salt Slow considers characters in motion – turning away, turning back or simply turning into something new entirely. Winner of The White Review Short Story Prize, Armfield is a writer of sharp, lyrical prose and tilting dark humour. Salt Slow is exemplary. A distinct new gothic, melancholy, powerful and poised. – China Mieville, author of The City The City The stories in this collection look at women’s bodies and their experiences in society with an eerie, otherworldly lense . . . For fans of Carmen Maria Machado, Sophie Mackintosh and Megan Hunter –Elle