Parallel Hells

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Throughout these startling and original short stories, readers' expectations are regularly subverted - and amply rewarded.

I n this deliciously strange debut collection, Leon Craig draws on folklore and gothic horror in refreshingly inventive ways to explore queer identity, love, power and the complicated nature of being human. I think the longer stories towards the end were much better, but even so none of them did all that much for me. There are plenty of jokes too, and striking turns of phrase, as well as some weird and wonderful surrealism of detail and conception.It was a brilliant take on friendship and connection, found family, shame, and secrecy, all themes familiar to queer stories but twisted into a surprisingly tender demonic little package.

Raw pork and opium has one of the more interesting styles of writing explored however the context of the story leaves you going.It is a sentiment that Craig, Ridgeway, and all bibliophiles share: the pleasure of being able to vividly feed off other people’s dramatics, like a demon, but then close the book without consequence once we’ve got our fill. I loved the two stories that really experimented with form: “raw pork and opium,” which features two narratives side-by-side across several pages; and “No Dominion,” which is told in an elliptical form. In the thirteen darkly audacious stories of Parallel Hells we meet a golem, made of clay, learning that its powers far exceed its Creator's expectations; a ruined mansion which grants the secret wishes of a group of revelers and a notorious murderer who discovers her Viking husband is not what he seems. The first was that this book is an exploration of identity, especially maybe queer identity (queer horror is a whole vibe), told about people who are discovering things about themselves that they might not necessarily like, or ways in which they don't conform to molds that they think they should conform to. I chose to jump back and forth between the two stories, paragraph by paragraph, but you could read either story in full first then go back and read the other.

The length of each column matches the other almost perfectly, bridging a formidable dichotomy between fear and pleasure.I bought this debut of thirteen short stories after hearing the author speak at the Jewish Book Festival and I’m so glad I did. Whilst a party next door throbs through the walls, she drifts through her house with a ghostly lack of purpose. The last story, Saplings, was definitely my favourite, along with The Bequest, No Dominion, Hags and Lick the Dust. One thing I will say is that one of the short stories played with formatting and had two simultaneous narratives occurring at once. His frankness causes a sordid sensation to seethe the length of the reader – we feel no different to the faceless fourth person in the images, recording David at his most intimate.

A glorious collection of short stories that reads as if Edgar Allan Poe and Shirley Jackson had a little queer baby.A glorious collection of short stories that reads as if Edgar Allan Poe and Shirley Jackson had a little queer baby . Even stories I found less enchanting were still a good read, and while I didn't connect as much with all of them none felt like filler, which is always a worry with any collection. The first story in the collection 'Unfinished and Unformed' promised much and left me excited to read the rest. A teenaged girl is drawn to a female vampire while on holiday in Mexico, a Viking child bride picks a bloody fight that kills thirty men, a daughter inherits a cursed bracelet from her mother, a golem finds it is more powerful than its maker, and an ancient demon feeds on the shame of modern-day Londoners.