Sunday, October 16, 2022

Five scary novels that use setting to embody horror

Stephanie Feldman is the author of the novels Saturnalia and The Angel of Losses, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, winner of the Crawford Fantasy Award, and finalist for the Mythopoeic Award. She is co-editor of the multi-genre anthology Who Will Speak for America? and her stories and essays have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Catapult Magazine, Electric Literature, Flash Fiction Online, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The Rumpus, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and more. She lives outside Philadelphia with her family.

[The Page 69 Test: The Angel of LossesMy Book, The Movie: The Angel of LossesThe Page 69 Test: Saturnalia]

At Tor.com Feldman tagged "five novels that prove place is everything in horror," including:
Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin

I finished this Booker International finalist by Argentine author Samanta Schweblin in a single night. The novel takes the form of a hospital-bed interrogation as the narrator, Amanda, struggles to make sense of how her country-weekend with her child ended in fatal circumstances. Amanda has an intense protective urge, which flares when she and her daughter arrive in a small town where most children aren’t “born right,” workers unload mysterious drums of liquid, and the local healer’s help incurs an enormous cost. Fever Dream’s houses, a familiar and powerful tool for blowing up the domestic psyche, are set in a polluted environment—inspired by true stories of toxic pesticides poisoning Argentine populations.
Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue