“16 superbly written, often surreal stories of misogyny, blood, anger, agony, and abuse. Bruce’s stygian tales are technically acÂcomplished, but also powered by a profound depth of feeling. They often compel and overwhelm at the same time. Like the cover art by Catrin Welz-Stein, This House of Wounds is both beautiful and horrific.” PAULA GURAN, LOCUS
“The stories in This House of Wounds are richly allegorical, formally innovative, thought-provoking and ambiguous. All the things I love, in other words.” NINA ALLAN
“Bruce is the real deal. This House of Wounds is an essential read across all genres… It is a compulsive, powerful collection… a debut to behold.” BLACK STATIC
“This is an eminently impressive debut collection of sixteen stories that showcase the author’s virtuosity, range and potential… This collection establishes Georgina Bruce as a genuinely original writer.” INTERZONE
“Bruce’s collection of feminist, fantastical short stories has something to please nearly every taste. Bruce’s knack for ethereal tales that cut straight to the core of what it means to be a human (and specifically a woman) will delight readers who enjoy a smattering of the supernatural and blurred edges of reality.” PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“An astonishing, totally absorbing debut collection. Edgy, disturbing and delicious in equal parts. Georgina Bruce plays with myth and horror beautifully.” KERRY HADLEY-PRYCE
“The stories in This House of Wounds strike me as both an emotional and intellectual examination of pain, from how it spreads and is passed on to others to how it can easily turn us into different, crueller creatures. Each act formed in pain leads to another, then another, and this makes for twisted, beautiful reading. Georgina Bruce is a courageous and compelling writer.” ALIYA WHITELEY
“Ms. Bruce is not one for linear narrative or an easy distinction between reality, dreams, analogy, art, intoxication and self-deceit. In many ways the whole book is an exploration how we distance ourselves from reality, and from ourselves. A truly astonishing achievement.” STEWART HORN
“Very bloody, disturbing, female-centric and gorgeously-written – I would recommend it to you!” TRACY FAHEY
“Oh you are in for a treat. One of the best debut collections I have ever read. The Bruce is a genius.” JIM MCLEOD, Gingernuts of Horror
“This House of Wounds is simply a gorgeous book, with ravishing cover art by Catrin Welz-Stein to complement the contents. Fairy-tale motifs abound – Red Queens, sorcerous crows, Princess Beasts, Woods Kings – yet they’re frequently jump-cut past the reader in fragmented, discontinuous, subjective glimpses, like a mystic marriage of Angela Carter with J.G. Ballard. And the beauty and glitter is frequently the sparkle of streams of blood or the shine of polished bone – the wounds are there, laid bare and held open by retractors for probing and examination. This absolutely is not horror per se, but it touches on horror territory persistently. It’s anything but pedestrian.” PAUL ST.JOHN MACKINTOSH, author and journalist.
“Your book gave me nightmares.” PENNY JONES, reviewer and author of Suffer the Children.
I officially don’t have time in my life for long books. It was Suzannah Clarke who broke me in that regard. 1000 pages in and then she decided we needed a detour to the Napoleonic Wars. We SO did not. Now, if a book is taking too long to read I start to fret about it, about the amount of other useful things I could be spending the time on (or books I could be reading).
Personally, I used to be an overwriter, but have trained myself to pare it down, pare it down. Possibly to a fault. The difficulty is that the vast majority of readers are not writers, and many of them enjoy lush descriptions, abundantly sprouting descriptors and other elements of story foliage that make some writers instinctively reach for the secateurs. And it’s the readers’ opinions that count, isn’t it?
Hi Neil. I like it when people agree with me! I do like novels where there is lots of imaginative room left for the reader – Thursbitch, by Alan Garner springs to mind. Or Gazelle, by Rikki Ducornet. Nice, slim novels that you can read in a day or so. Stories that stay with you.
I’ll make an exception for Murakami, as I’ve always been a fan. Otherwise, a book this length would definitely not appeal.
I completely agree with your entire first paragraph of this post, haha. I didn’t like After Dark much either, I am enjoying IQ84 but I am only 150 pages and very interested to see where it goes. I will be patient for Murakami and do my best not to judge until I know the whole story.
Actually, I pretty much agree with everything you wrote here haha. I overwrite when I’m not thinking about it too much. Which I think is better than underwriting for the reason you mentioned. A lot of the time I fret and obsess over what I’m going to write and end up writing very little because I don’t want to ‘ruin’ anything. But if I can leave that obsessiveness behind and just /write/, then I will overwrite and not have too much trouble eliminating stuff. As for long novels, sometimes a story has to be long…I guess. I’ve never read a 900 page novel ,though , and I think that might be pushing some limits…it was originally published in three volumes, I think, and he hadn’t really planned on the third part (I should look this up…)? Well, we’ll see how I feel about the whole thing once I finally get through it 😛
Hey Reno! 🙂
Well, I just finished Book One, and it seems like the story is just getting started. There have been a few unnecessary diversions, but so far it feels like he’s telling the story – just very slowly. I’m kind of enjoying it, although I feel like I haven’t totally got a handle on the characters yet. I’m interested in some of the themes he explores, like sexuality, abuse and rape – I haven’t seen any reviewers really talk about those aspects of the book.
I know what you mean about obsessive caution. You have to throw it to the wind, though!