Lydian Faust
Autor(a) de Forest Underground
Obras por Lydian Faust
Severin 1 exemplar
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
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Membros
Críticas
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 2
- Membros
- 3
- Popularidade
- #1,791,150
- Avaliação
- 4.0
- Críticas
- 3
- ISBN
- 1
‘Forest Underground’ is the debut novella from Lydian Faust and is published by the Sinister Horror Company, a small UK based indie publisher. It’s very good indeed. In fact it’s the best indie horror I’ve read for some time.
I always worry when I see rave reviews of small press or self-published books. Instinctively, part of my brain wonders if the praise is just down to enthusiasm or hubris on the part of the reviewer. If they’re that good, why haven’t they been picked up by a big publisher? That’s a terrible thing to think, and clearly displays an ignorance of the way that modern publishing has gone. My rational mind knows that my gut reaction is wrong, but it’s there all the same. Maybe you feel the same way, or maybe it’s just me. Either way, believe me when I say that ‘Forest Underground’ is worth your time. It’s not perfect, but it is very, very good and I suspect it marks the entry of a bold new talent on the horror stage.
It’s a hard book to describe, as a simple relaying of the plot doesn’t do it justice. Having finished it I’m left with the feeling that I don’t really know what I just read. That might sound like a bad thing, but it’s anything but. I felt the same way after finishing Samanta Schweblin’s brilliant ‘Fever Dream’ or after watching movies like ‘Mother!’ or ‘Videodrome’. All these pieces of art have a timeless, dreamlike quality that taps into our psyches and needles at our deepest anxieties and fears. Faust’s book does that too, weaving a reinterpretation of Little Red Riding Hood in with a ghost story and a deeply creepy serial killer tale. Those elements might sound at odds with each other, but Faust does a great job of combining them into a coherent, if nightmarish, whole. She packs the book with fantastically dark imagery: cannibalism, self-mutilation, mass graves. The most horrifying scenes are more memorable than you might want them to be.
Central character Luna is deliberately weird and enigmatic, but Faust gives her problems that are recognisable and easy to relate to. Despite the mystery that surrounds Luna, and the fact that I never felt like I truly knew her, I did find myself caring about her. The book centers on a series of Luna’s therapy sessions with her doctor, Alisha Sizemore. As Luna tells the doctor about her past it becomes hard to tell what is reality and what is illusion. There is a Russian doll element that works brilliantly, with the story going in a different direction two thirds of the way through and then again towards the end, before wrapping up in a very satisfying conclusion.
Thematically there is a lot going on here for such a short book. The troubles of female adolescence are explored through both Luna and Alisha’s memories. At times it feels reminiscent of Angela Carter’s retellings of European folk tales. Like Carter, Faust gets to the bloody heart of Little Red Riding Hood. Her take is very different, but equally effective.
Bullying and parental neglect are compellingly and sensitively covered too, without ever overwhelming the story. And throughout it all looms a mistrust of authority and institutions (hospitals and schools in this case), that feels very current.
In the end the much of the book feels like a fresh new fairy tale. Unsettling, bloody, timeless and haunting. I enjoyed every blood-soaked, horrific page.… (mais)