A singular debut that “marks the emergence of a great, stomping, wall-knocking talent” (Kevin Barry)
Fen
Stories
- “Johnson has a marshy imagination and wind-whipped prose. . . . Crosscurrents of connection add up to a consonance that might almost be mythic.”—The New York Times Book Review
Daisy Johnson’s Fen, set in the fenlands of England, transmutes the flat, uncanny landscape into a rich, brooding atmosphere. From that territory grow stories that blend folklore and restless invention to turn out something entirely new. Amid the marshy paths of the fens, a teenager might starve herself into the shape of an eel. A house might fall in love with a girl and grow jealous of her friend. A boy might return from the dead in the guise of a fox. Out beyond the confines of realism, the familiar instincts of sex and hunger blend with the shifting, unpredictable wild as the line between human and animal is effaced by myth and metamorphosis. With a fresh and utterly contemporary voice, Johnson lays bare these stories of women testing the limits of their power to create a startling work of fiction.
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About the Author
Credit: Matthew Bradshaw
Praise
- “Fen is a haunting book about a haunted place, and it’s more than worth it to take the trip.”—NPR.org
- “Fen was a howl I didn’t know I needed. . . . Hauntingly written.”—Celeste Ng, The New York Times Book Review
- “[A] lusty debut. . . . [Fen is] a deep dive into symbolism, from a girl who seeks to starve herself into the shape of an eel to a house in love with its female inhabitant.”—O, The Oprah Magazine
- “A mix of dark, surrealist fairy tales and bone-chilling realism.”—Lesley Nneka Arimah, Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
