Things We Say in the Dark

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There are definitely lots of things to admire here. Logan’s prose is always readable, but it’s punctuated by moments of linguistic beauty, with vivid and evocative imagery peppered throughout. Some of these disturbing tableaus are sure to linger in the mind. The stories themselves are mostly contemporary, but there’s a timeless quality to the themes being explored. Namely, the domestic fears of everyday life – particularly those that haunt young women. Logan takes the things we’re told by society to aim for – the gorgeous home, the perfect family, the successful life – and spins our apprehensions about them into what reads like a series of fever dreams, as though she has literally documented her nightmares in the form of a dream diary. What if our houses aren’t the safe spaces we always imagined? What if you find the experience of pregnancy and childbirth horrifying rather than beautiful? How would you cope if your child wasn’t healthy or happy? What if you wished you’d never become a parent at all? What if you can never escape the horrors of your past? These fears and more are explored in claustrophobic, hypnotic ways by employing a dash of fairy tale, a twist of the supernatural, and a generous pinch of magical realism. NOTE: After the first couple of days of dream-haze solitude and not leaving my room once it got dark, my fellow artists-in-residence did in fact arrive and join me in Blönduós, Iceland, and I had the most wonderful month of making surrounded by lovely people. I probably could have survived the reading of this once they were all there with me. I'll have to trial it next time. He was so big and warm. Corrin always found it easy to sink into his embrace like this — curling her body inward so she could dig into his skin. At the time, Corrin told herself she would always remember this day. She would think of the bright sun and the blue skies, at times clouded over by columns of smoke, while the air smelled faintly of brimstone and fire. War had been hell, but from there on out, they would live in peace. Curiously, Xander appeared still lost in thought, as if the war still raged on in his listless eyes. We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.

Things We Say in the Dark - Penguin Books UK

Kirsty Logan is a professional daydreamer. She is the author of two novels, The Gloaming and The Gracekeepers, and two story collections, A Portable Shelter and The Rental Heart & Other Fairytales. Her fifth book, Things We Say in the Dark, will be published on Halloween 2019. Some stories are divided into multiple parts by headings or point-of-view changes. Others are in unusual formats like footnotes, a questionnaire, bullet-pointed lists, or a couple’s contrasting notes on house viewings. The titles can be like mini-tales in their own right, e.g. “Girls Are Always Hungry when All the Men Are Bite-Size” and “The Only Thing I Can’t Tell You Is Why.” As is often the case in Logan's fiction, there is such strange and compelling imagery threaded throughout the collection. In 'Last One to Leave Please Turn Off the Lights', the narrator makes tiny houses out of parts of their body: 'My ear-house got buried in the window box; my eye-house was squashed under your winter boots; my tongue-house was snatched by a neighbourhood fox.' Mythology and fairytale-like imagery make themselves felt at times; at others, magical realism creeps in. Logan makes the weirdest things feel entirely realistic; it is a real skill of hers. KIRSTY LOGAN WAS SELECTED AS ONE OF BRITAIN'S TEN MOST OUTSTANDING LGBTQ WRITERS by Val McDermid for the International Literature Showcase in 2019 Read more DetailsPlease give us until the end of Sunday to answer all asks. If we haven't answered your ask by then, it's likely that we never received it and you can re-send it when the ask is open again, thanks!

Things We Say in the Dark by Kirsty Logan review – an

I was already a fan of Kirsty Logan’s work, which explores the dark and fantastical, through her previous novels, as well as hearing her perform at events, such as when she read her wonderfully titled short story “Girls are Always Hungry When all the Men are Bite-Size” which also features in Things We Say in the Dark. Since then, I have been excited to hear more of Logan’s horror – her new collection does not disappoint. Many of these 20 stories twist fairy tale imagery into nightmarish scenarios, enumerating fears of bodies and pregnancies going wrong. Body parts are offered as tokens of love or left behind as the sole evidence of an abduction. Ghosts and corpses are frequent presences. I also recognized some of the same sorts of Celtic sea legends that infuse Logan’s debut novel, The Gracekeepers. Corrins saw these doubts in his riddled expression. She felt it every night, when he took her in his arms and held her so close, she no longer knew where she ended and where he began. His body, like a massive shadow over her, would press densely against hers, slowly sinking until they melted into each other. Some things can't be spoken about in the light of day. But we can visit our fears at night, in the dark. We can turn them over and weigh them in our hands and maybe that will protect us from them. But maybe not.Can we ever say that we know what scares us the most? I am afraid of spiders and jenny-long-legs, but these are surface fears. Home.” She held her breath, focused on the unperturbed beating of his heart. There was so much finality to the word that unnerved Corrin. What was home? Where was it? When she closed her eyes, she pictured that lonely tower and the room she had known. Blue skies and a sun couldn’t shake that image out of her head. A smile crept up on her lips, the irony not having been lost on her.

Things We Say in the Dark by Kirsty Logan | Waterstones

He fell into a dreamy hush, holding her and once more closing his eyes. The only signs he remained awake were the feathery motions of his fingers as they wove into her hair, gently coiling them into loose knots. It was almost childlike, the way he did it. So pure. So devoid of any intention other than to soothe. Would we get married then?” she asked out of the blue. There was something of a tremor in her voice as she peered up, probing the dark for the faint light of his eyes. The fiction of Joel Lane – ‘To read Lane is to enter into an unforgettable, beautifully ambiguous landscape’

Kirsty Logan hat mich mit diesem Buch in die Dunkelheit geführt. Meine Hand in ihrer hat sie Bilder in die Finsternis gemalt, von Frauen, die Früchte gebären, bewohnbaren Pilzhäusern und gläserne Bibliotheken ohne Bücher. Manche Geschichten sind magisch (oder metaphorisch?), andere so real, dass es wehtut. Sie sprechen das aus, was gern ungesagt bleibt, z.B. wie unheimlich es ist, ein Kind in sich heranwachsen zu fühlen oder dass manche Eltern besagtes Kind nach einer Weile auch gern wieder für eine Verschnaufpause abgeben würden. Unaussprechbare Bedürfnisse werden realisiert und düstere Geheimnisse angedeutet. Widerspenstige Kontraste spielen eine große Rolle: zu viel oder zu wenig geliebt werden, Angst davor gesehen oder übersehen zu werden. Even though this book is not very long, it took Logan almost two years to write and there is no wonder why. Constant thinking about your fears and watching horror movies as a part of “research” can be a bit too much at times. She even admitted, that all the characters in the stories are named after famous horror movie characters, but no one yet discovered all of them.