Women are writing absolutely horrific novels. Women are writing novels about people (usually women, usually young) who stalk, slash, bludgeon, infect, slice, dismember and cannibalise. Recent additions to the literary subgenre some have termed “femgore” – ultraviolent body-horror by female writers – include EK Sathue’s Youthjuice and The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim. In the autumn, Of the Flesh will be published, a new anthology of “modern horror stories” from authors including Evie Wyld, Lionel Shriver and Susan Barker.
The boom in mainstream body-horror novels written by and explicitly marketed to women could probably be loosely dated to the beginning of the decade, and the publication of Mona Awad’s splenetic campus satire, Bunny. Eliza Clark’s Boy Parts, promoted by critics as “American Psycho for girls” with patronising regularity, followed not long after. Both novels achieved huge commercial success and were early case studies in the power of BookTok to drive sales.
