In the story “Hags,” a demon, which feeds on the shame of humans, experiences overlays of a victim’s memory whilst indulging in their undignified thoughts and feelings: “A child standing alone in a city park at dusk, droplets of blood dried into a pair of jeans, a pitch-dark room with the sensation of small, soft hands finding their way into a sleeping back. These stories penetrate the surface of their characters' assumed identities to reveal the glittering realities beneath. In using it to overcome her academic rival, the character tells us “There was nothing so pure as being in things but not of them. They pull and push and bleed and then suddenly the tunnel bursts open into a huge and beautiful cavern like a train station, like a cathedral, like a city under the ground” – like a neighbour’s party.

Whilst a party next door throbs through the walls, she drifts through her house with a ghostly lack of purpose. Through this blend of folklore and legend, repurposed to capture modern anxieties, the reader will come across cursed bracelets, severed hands, vampires and femme fatales. However, all this is also a characteristic of the superbly dreamlike state of some stories and the brevity of the short-story genre, so does not make for a huge criticism. These stories penetrate the surface of their characters’ assumed identities to reveal the glittering realities beneath.Reflective surfaces are not far away in Leon Craig’s debut short story collection, Parallel Hells, either.

As Luke is panting, hiding under a table to shelter from his pursuer, in the same breath, the reader sees Carly tracing her lover’s concaves with her tongue. In some way in a lot of these stories there's this element of characters thinking they're in control, when they're absolutely not, and they're totally in denial and there's a refusal to accept powerlessness or lack of authority. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. The beating heart of this community is The Arms, a rodent-infested pub where many of the characters glance off of each other.Richly and nastily wonderful, a glorious gothic mansion with something frightening waiting for you in each room ….

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. To discover more content exclusive to our print and digital editions, subscribe here to receive a copy of The London Magazine to your door every two months, while also enjoying full access to our extensive digital archive of essays, literary journalism, fiction and poetry.

Loads of stuff and in the fantasy I've read outside of Terry Pratchett's discworld stuff you don't see them a heck of a lot. I loved some of the stories in this collection, I liked others, and I’m pretty sure I’m not smart enough to understand a few. All of the stories play on surrealism and I love that they are influenced by folklore and other gothic literature. Whilst the chapters in this story are loosely-linked vignettes, what all the characters share is the claustrophobia of a caver. I really enjoyed the level of detail that Leon Craig puts into setting up the story, even when we are thrown into the narrative.