Hair Side, Flesh Side

Author: Helen Marshall
Genres: Collection, Dark Fantasy, Horror
Publisher: ChiZine Publications
Publication Year: 2012

A child receives the body of Saint Lucia of Syracuse for her seventh birthday. A rebelling angel rewrites the Book of Judgement to protect the woman he loves. A young woman discovers the lost manuscript of Jane Austen written on the inside of her skin. A 747 populated by a dying pantheon makes the extraordinary journey to the beginning of the universe.

Lyrical and tender, quirky and cutting. Helen Marshall’s exceptional debut collection weaves the fantastic and the horrific alongside the touchingly human in fifteen modern parables about history, memory and the cost of creating art.

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Awards

2013 British Fantasy Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer (Winner)
2013 Aurora Award for Best Related Work (Short-List)
Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize (Long-list)

Library Journal, Starred Review

“. . . A tour de force of imagination, this remarkable debut collection uses the conventions of dark fantasy and horror as the framework for some of speculative fiction’s most unusual stories. VERDICT Fans of experimental fiction and exceptional writing should find a wealth of enjoyment here.”

What the Critics are Saying

"Helen Marshall’s Hair Side, Flesh Side is a revelation. Her collection of expertly-drawn characters with their historical longings are depicted with a compelling intelligence and achingly soft touch, and their stories are as compassionate as they are disquieting. Hair Side, Flesh Side announces a major new talent in dark fiction. Indeed, these are stories that will be imprinted on the inside of your skin."
Paul TremblayAuthor of The Little Sleep and Swallowing a Donkey’s Eye
". . . Sometimes you hear people talking about the new face of horror. Well huddle closer, children. Hair Side, Flesh Side is it. . . . Marshall’s stories are frightening, touching, quirky, sexy and deeply lyrical. The 15 stories each seem deeply grounded in reality, making the otherworldly explorations all the more real."
"Best F/SF Books of 2012,” January MagazineRead the Review
". . . Sometimes a book comes along that is so original, so vibrantly alive, so beautifully imagined and so much a law unto itself that the only comment or advice a reviewer can offer is to say: go read it. Hair Side, Flesh Side is one such book, and having experienced it I am left with a genuine sense of excitement, thinking about where Helen Marshall might take us next."
Strange HorizonsRead the Review
"Masterful horror. In Marshall’s dark landscapes, the metaphors are feral and they’ll turn on you in a heartbeat."
M.R. CareyAuthor of The Girl with All the Gifts
"Stories subtle and unsettling: Helen Marshall clothes the uncanny in new flesh and then makes it bleed."
Kelly Link World Fantasy Award-winning author of Pretty Monsters
"The stories in Helen Marshall’s Hair Side, Flesh Side occur in the interstices of our most fundamental relations. Brothers and sisters, parents and children, lovers find the space between them grown strange, shifting, as the familiar becomes the site and the source of startling transformation. Elegant, unsettling, these stories leave the reader no less changed than their characters. Highly recommended work."
John LanganAuthor of Technicolor and Other Revelations and House of Windows

Hair Side, Flesh Side