Wow. Just wow. This might just be my favorite read of the year.
This book follows about a year in the life of Scarlett and Henry. Henry is a taxidermist living in rural South West England who meets Scarlett one day on the beach. Scarlett is much younger than him (at one point it was mentioned she was half his age but she is very much an adult), and the two have an instant connection. Their relationship is passionate, loving, and pretty weird but the two seem to compliment each other perfectly. Throughout the year, Scarlett learns more about Henry's taxidermy creations as well as his rival, Felix. The two make a promise to be soulmates for all eternity and that promise has far-reaching consequences that neither character could foresee.
This book is categorized as horror and literary fiction which I think are the most fitting genre categories. It is a hauntingly beautiful read and a very, very slow burn on the horror side. The narrative style is from Scarlett's point of view talking to Henry which also feels like she's talking to the reader. For example, the first line in the book is "Do you remember January as I do?" which was a bit more personal than I was expecting because not many books have their whole narrative using 'you'. I quickly got used to it, but I found that this choice enabled me to get sucked right back into the book after having to put it down. This, in hand, really amped up the horror for me because I felt much more ingrained in the story than a regular 3rd person point of view - even though I know that Scarlett is talking to Henry and not me. The overall prose was beautiful to read. Hall's descriptions were very detailed and had some really interesting word choices. The prose was where the literary fiction part really shined for me. I usually don't vibe with literary fiction and find it to be very showy and boring but I think the fact that this beautiful prose was being used to describe such weird and horrific things really won me over. I've seen in some reviews people comparing this book to Frankenstein, which I can see. However, it really reminded me of The Yellow Wallpaper with the vivid descriptions that slowly get more and more disturbing as the narrative continues. I read The Yellow Wallpaper in 2005 for my freshman English class so to have this book flash me back to that story fifteen years later was pretty cool. I haven't read Catherine House, but from what I've been hearing about it, that also might be a somewhat similar vibe.
Where I think this book might lose some readers is the sort of lack of plot. I primarily read thrillers, romance, and sci-fi, most of which are very plot heavy. However, I would categorize myself as a character-driven reader and I think that's why I didn't mind that there wasn't too much going on plot-wise in this book. Like I said earlier, the whole book takes place over the course of a year in the lives of Scarlett and Henry and most chapters are just them going about their daily business. The real driving force behind the story is Scarlett and her feelings about Henry's taxidermy but that is a pretty gradual change. There's one big moment at about the 85% mark where I had to go back and re-read what happened because even that big plot point was sort of hidden in this very languid narrative. When I realized what had happened and what was about to happen, I was absolutely floored. There were aspects and characters that got brought up in the course of the book that I wish got a little more explored like Henry's rivalry with Felix, but that is really based more on just my own curiosity more so than anything else. Looking back, this book was written really tightly and had a lot of things happen but as I was reading, it didn't feel like a whole lot was going on outside of Scarlett's own mind. I think some readers will get frustrated by Scarlett having questions about certain people or certain situations and she will just drop them when Henry doesn't want to talk about them.
The horror elements in this book were perfectly done for my tastes. It swings more toward body horror in that Henry starts making weird hybrid taxidermy creatures. For most of the book (I'd say the first 75%), there isn't much horror except for a very eerie vibe and some very vivid descriptions of Scarlett and her feelings about these creatures. However, in the last 25% of the book, the horror really ramps up and was, in my opinion, perfectly done. The big moment I was talking about above was also when the body horror really took off and it reminded me a lot of the body horror in the manga Uzumaki. It was just realistic enough to really get under my skin but at least in this book, there aren't any illustrations, just the reader's own imagination. The horror really topped off at the end and I don't want to give any spoilers but the whole time reading up to it, I was thinking "oh no, oh no, this can't be where this is going, oh no, I think this book is going there, oh no, yep, it went there" and that's really the best way I can describe it.
This book is definitely not for everyone. I think the cover and title will do a good job of weeding out readers who are automatically put off by the idea of taxidermy. This is a very atmospheric, slow burn, body horror, year in the life sort of story. The prose is beautiful, haunting, and hypnotic. There isn't much in the way of plot other than it being a story of two people living together out in the countryside and how their lives change over the course of a year. This is Polly Hall's debut novel and she hit it out of the park. I'll be looking forward to reading more of her works down the road.
Overall, I absolutely loved this book. The writing style isn't my usual go-to, but it was extremely atmospheric and really pulled me into the story right away. It is a slow-burn horror novel which almost no horror at the beginning but Hall brings in the big guns at the end. I find the overall tone and story to be very similar to The Yellow Wallpaper except much more explicit and with way more body horror. I can't recommend this book more highly - it was fantastic!
272 pages.
Thanks to NetGalley and CamCat Publishing for the ARC.
Publication date is December 8, 2020.
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