YOU WILL GROW INTO THEM

RELEASED OUT NOW! 344 pages | Paperback

Author Malcolm devlin

Publisher unsung stories Malcolm Devlin’s debut collection finds the uncanny in the everyday. The 10 stories here vary in tone and genre, but often hinge around personal transformation or some disconcerting oddity that bends reality out of shape. As weird fiction goes, it’s quite grounded.

“Passion Play” initially reads like a conventional horror story about a missing girl, but its villain – if you can call it that – the “Crosshatch Man” is a discrepancy in a series of religious paintings. “Two Brothers” focuses on William, a young boy with an austere father, who finds that he no longer relates to his older sibling, who’s changed both metaphorically and literally after leaving home. “The Bridge”, meanwhile, finds lurking horror and sadness in a miniature town left behind by a dead man.

Throughout, Devlin’s world building is subtle but effective. “Dogsbody” is set in a world where werewolves have emerged, only to become a despised underclass, while “Her First Harvest” is a coming-of-age tale (one of several here) about a young woman’s sexual awakening at a debutante ball where guests gather to have crops of fungus removed from their backs. It’s both sensual and utterly revolting and, like the rest of this intriguing, alarming book, positively hums with a sense of the uncanny.