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Salt Slow
In her brilliantly inventive and haunting debut collection of stories, Julia Armfield explores bodies and the bodily, mapping the skin and bones of her characters through their experiences of isolation, obsession, love and revenge.
Teenagers develop ungodly appetites, a city becomes insomniac overnight, and bodies are diligently picked apart to make up better ones. The mundane worlds of schools and sleepy sea-side towns are invaded and transformed, creating a landscape which is constantly shifting to hold on to its inhabitants. Blurring the mythic and the gothic with the everyday, salt slow considers characters in motion – turning away, turning back or simply turning into something new entirely.
Winner of The White Review Short Story Prize, Armfield is a writer of sharp, lyrical prose and tilting dark humour – salt slow marks the arrival of an ambitious and singular new voice.
Teenagers develop ungodly appetites, a city becomes insomniac overnight, and bodies are diligently picked apart to make up better ones. The mundane worlds of schools and sleepy sea-side towns are invaded and transformed, creating a landscape which is constantly shifting to hold on to its inhabitants. Blurring the mythic and the gothic with the everyday, salt slow considers characters in motion – turning away, turning back or simply turning into something new entirely.
Winner of The White Review Short Story Prize, Armfield is a writer of sharp, lyrical prose and tilting dark humour – salt slow marks the arrival of an ambitious and singular new voice.
193 pages, Hardcover
First published May 30, 2019
1042 people are currently reading
46306 people want to read
About the author
Julia Armfield
8 books2,559 followersJulia Armfield was born in London in 1990. She is a fiction writer and occasional playwright with a Masters in Victorian Art and Literature from Royal Holloway University. She was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year in 2019. She was commended in the Moth Short Story Prize 2017, longlisted for the Deborah Rogers Award 2018, and won the White Review short story prize 2018. Her first book, salt slow, is a collection of short stories about bodies and the bodily, mapping the skin and bones of its characters through their experiences of isolation, obsession and love. She won the Pushcart Prize in 2020. Julia Armfield lives and works in London.
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June 25, 2025
‘She was a gentle sort of horror…’
I love a story that has teeth. You sink your readerly teeth into it only to find it biting you back, mashing you up in its prose, digesting you in its pages as your own mind digests the narratives in return. Salt Slow from Julia Armfield is such a book. These nine stories are as mesmerizing as they are menacing, couched in quotidian realities that are familiar yet, crouched in the shadows, we find horrors that open new realms of imagination to tear the flesh off the ordinary and explore the muscles and bones beneath society. These stories stalk around social issues, employing body-horror to invigorate discussions on women’s bodies, social agency, femininity under patriarchy, or dredging monsters up from the depths to interrogate interpersonal relationships and queerness in a heteronormative society. A woman’s dead girlfriend returns home after six months in the grave, a all-woman rock band that makes ‘music about yearning, about hunger,’ inspires fans to unleash their emotions in a feral frenzy, a wolf becomes a devoted sister, people lose the ability to sleep, bodies become something far greater than human and more. For a collection that presses into viscera and violence, Salt Slow feels rather serene, with Armfield’s prose washing over the reader as nearly hypnotic. Armfield blends the mundane with the monstrous and makes us feel always on the verge of tumbling into a vaster, wilder world making Salt Slow an eerie feast of the imagination that carves out a space for women’s desires, rage, and bodies to be celebrated.
‘We are frenetic with hunger, with wanting, with the repentance of the season. We laugh like hyenas, our heads thrusting forward from our bodies.’
I first discovered Julia Armfield upon recommendation from Florence Welsh. Since she is king, I instantly sought out her novel and now have finally read the short stories. In keeping with my habit of matching Florence + The Machine songs with books that I feel embody them (see all of my Jeanette Winterson reviews), for your listening pleasure to accompany this piece I recommend putting on Dream Girl Evil. Carry on.
This is a haunting collection and you, dear reader, are about to become the haunted house for it to inhabit. The tone of this collection really seduces your forward, much like that of a fairy tale. It often feels quite familiar but plays with tropes in ways that are rendered fresh and surprising. Her prose is dazzling, luring you into sinister landscapes with ‘waves drawing back like lips revealing teeth,’ or a sky that is ‘gory with stars like the inside of a gutted night,’ engulfing you in her imagination and then striking. Included in this collection is Armfield’s story The Great Awake, which was the winner of the 2018 White Review Short Story Prize, though the rest of the collection stands vibrantly on its own instead of like padding as an excuse to release the winning story in book form. It is an imaginative story (you can read it in full HERE, and I highly recommend it) that functions like a thought experiment about how society would be affected if our ability to sleep left us and became a separate, shadowy entity that follows us around. Armfield explores the social implications and ethical questions—of course someone will question “can we fuck it?” or “what if we murder it?”—but threads it through a somber and touching budding romance. This is rather consistent throughout the collection with stories injecting something fantastical in an otherwise mundane reality, asking how the change would affect relationships, society or our coping mechanism in general.
‘I choose Greek myths and ghost stories, tales that come in under fourteen pages and culminate in violent lessons. I read aloud and let her stop me when she wants to – stories of swans and spiders, bay trees, narcissi, girls transformed into monsters by rivals playing dirty.’
I’ve greatly enjoyed how horror has been embraced as a literary avenue for exploring ideas of identity in recent years (though the tradition is as old as the genre itself), with many queer and or BIPOC writers brilliantly crafting chilling stories by way of social critiques and Salt Slow successfully moves through horror to illustrate the underlying themes. In a conversation with The Guardian, Armfield discusses how ‘the entire point of so much good horror is the overcoming of patriarchal monsters, essentially,’ and we can see that alive and well in her stories. Especially through the ways her stories confront what it means to be a woman—or a queer woman—in modern society.
Salt Slow makes excellent use of body horror as a way to celebrate women’s bodies. The characters frequently mention ‘I had a bad body around that time,’ or reference ‘problem skin,’ and Armfield urges us to embrace all bodies as beautiful and allow them to be as such even when society would call them flawed or monstrous. We find this in the opening story, Manti, which takes a sharp look at the journey through puberty into womanhood. The story juxtaposes the narrator’s peers, girls who are blossoming into bodies that inspire a hunger to be devoured by sexual appetites, with her own that is shedding skin and being instilled with a rather different hunger to devour male bodies.
‘They have witnessed the way things have stretched and mutated. There are things down there, growing. She had briefly been one of those things herself…’
Armfield plunges into the depths of womanhood to embrace the life beneath the surface that society tries to keep submerged. The ocean is a frequent motif in her works—particularly the mysteries that come floating up out of it—and her characters often identify with the murkiness beneath the waves. In Smack, a woman refuses to leave her husbands unused lakeside cottage during their divorce, feeling kindred to the jellyfish that have beached themselves in such numbers it has shocked the country, emboldened and defiant in her affinity for their masses that are ‘split open and unbodied, a mess of tentacles and bells and polyps that the men running clean-up operations have failed to sweep away.’ The ocean, which is often a symbol for women or motherhood in the myths and folklore tracing back through history, is also significant in the titular story about a pregnant woman and her partner adrift in the post-apocalypse where heavy rains have flooded the planet like a blend of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Noah of the Bible where women have reclaimed the focus. Though it is not the pregnancy or giving birth where the horror awakens in this story, but rather the legacy this act leaves behind.
It is no surprise, reading these, that Armfield would follow this collection with her debut novel, the deeply moving Our Wives Under the Sea. The makings of the novel are all on display here, not just in the focus on the mysteries under the surface but Armfield’s tendency to juggle the moment of horror with the arc of a relationship caught in the crossfire. This is most notable in Cassandra After, one of my favorite tales which features the decomposing body of a dead girlfriend coming to call months after her burial. The story is a tender yet tragic remembrance of a relationship, like a coming-of-age narrative of accepting one’s own queerness under an unwelcoming society that positions Cassandra’s catholicism as a barrier to the narrator’s ability to properly mourn. The story feels like a precursor to the novel—not a draft, per say, as it is fully realized and perfect in its own devastating way—and one of the highlights for the multiple queer relationships that populate this collection.
Though there are straight relationships in this collection as well. ‘There is no way to love a man,’ begins the story Granite which focuses on trying to find a fitting partner under the criticisms of friends, ‘not well, or rather, not correctly.’ Society always seems to butt in on interpersonal relationship and the characters feel less able to embrace themselves for themselves and more pressured to conform to the wishes of the masses (which, essentially, is a queer narrative as well). Though not every story is somber. The Collectibles is a rather humorous tale of a group of women roomates who, tired of the failures of relationships, dream up the idea of a perfect man. Which is all fine and dandy until one decides to create one Frankenstein-style. ‘“I don’t think [Salt Slow] will be unpalatable to men,’ Armfield jokes in interview, ‘it’s just that a lot of men die in it.’
‘As catholic girls, we are all a little awkward, the kind of girls grown slack and strange from too much inactivity and not enough contact with boys.’
This is a collection that celebrates women, but also one that ensures we remember that women have a place. In literature, in society, in their own agency and emotions. Formally Feral follows a girl who has experienced her parents divorce and then father’s remarriage to a woman who keeps a wolf as a daughter, the wolf becoming her protector and teaching her that she, too, has teeth to keep the monsters (abusive boys) at bay. But one of the biggest highlights of this book is Stop Your Women’s Ears with Wax, a story with a fresh narrative style that chronicles the tour of an all-woman band that serves as not only a rebuttal to patriarchal norms but a force that can shatter all expectations. Fans latch onto their songs about desire and it awakens the wildness that has been made dormant within them. ‘The call, the drag, the ache, the yearn, the need, whatever you want to call it.’ And things get intense.
This tale of feral teenage girls devouring men in the streets is the Eras Tour we deserve (I was at the Detroit show and I will never stop talking about it, sorry not sorry, I’m actually wearing the t-shirt right now). Is it a cruel summer tour or the inevitable breaking to the surface of repressed emotion finally finding a voice? It reminds me of the book Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger, where author Soraya Chemaly discusses how when women are taught that exhibiting strong emotions, like those they find in the band's music, 'is undesirable, selfish, powerless, and ugly, we learn that we are undesirable, selfish, powerless, and ugly.' These repressed feelings turn inward, but Chemaly asserts that 'anger...invokes the possibility of change and of fighting back' and can be a useful tool in releasing the socially-coached shame.
Armfield has stated her work attempts to reclaim the monster, to show the monstrous as a symbol of resistance against repression, and the image of all the bottled rage of a generation of girls exploding out from concert-hall doors is one hell of a way to capture that.
‘Cities could not be lived in but only haunted, that we would simply become two more ghosts in a place where ghosts already abound.’
Salt Slow is a gorgeous collection of stories and Julia Armfield wonderfully harnesses elements of horror to open up discussions on society ‘the way you crack a chest cavity.’ It is a quieter collection than you’d expect from the accolades and descriptions it brings, but I found that the quietness and rather soft delivery only added to my enjoyment as the stories seem to nestle deep within your mind, curled up like a cat that will bat at your thoughts for days to come. These stories are weird, yet wonderful and tease the imagination in ways that recall being a small child, watching shadows move across your walls and fearing they are more than light thrown against a pile of clothes on your chair—these stories are the realization that they are, in fact, something more.
4.5/5
‘I pressed my face to her chest in the too-soft place where the skin was still intact and felt I understood the way the surface of the world is thinner in certain places. that these places are where the strange, true things escape.’
I love a story that has teeth. You sink your readerly teeth into it only to find it biting you back, mashing you up in its prose, digesting you in its pages as your own mind digests the narratives in return. Salt Slow from Julia Armfield is such a book. These nine stories are as mesmerizing as they are menacing, couched in quotidian realities that are familiar yet, crouched in the shadows, we find horrors that open new realms of imagination to tear the flesh off the ordinary and explore the muscles and bones beneath society. These stories stalk around social issues, employing body-horror to invigorate discussions on women’s bodies, social agency, femininity under patriarchy, or dredging monsters up from the depths to interrogate interpersonal relationships and queerness in a heteronormative society. A woman’s dead girlfriend returns home after six months in the grave, a all-woman rock band that makes ‘music about yearning, about hunger,’ inspires fans to unleash their emotions in a feral frenzy, a wolf becomes a devoted sister, people lose the ability to sleep, bodies become something far greater than human and more. For a collection that presses into viscera and violence, Salt Slow feels rather serene, with Armfield’s prose washing over the reader as nearly hypnotic. Armfield blends the mundane with the monstrous and makes us feel always on the verge of tumbling into a vaster, wilder world making Salt Slow an eerie feast of the imagination that carves out a space for women’s desires, rage, and bodies to be celebrated.
‘We are frenetic with hunger, with wanting, with the repentance of the season. We laugh like hyenas, our heads thrusting forward from our bodies.’
I first discovered Julia Armfield upon recommendation from Florence Welsh. Since she is king, I instantly sought out her novel and now have finally read the short stories. In keeping with my habit of matching Florence + The Machine songs with books that I feel embody them (see all of my Jeanette Winterson reviews), for your listening pleasure to accompany this piece I recommend putting on Dream Girl Evil. Carry on.
This is a haunting collection and you, dear reader, are about to become the haunted house for it to inhabit. The tone of this collection really seduces your forward, much like that of a fairy tale. It often feels quite familiar but plays with tropes in ways that are rendered fresh and surprising. Her prose is dazzling, luring you into sinister landscapes with ‘waves drawing back like lips revealing teeth,’ or a sky that is ‘gory with stars like the inside of a gutted night,’ engulfing you in her imagination and then striking. Included in this collection is Armfield’s story The Great Awake, which was the winner of the 2018 White Review Short Story Prize, though the rest of the collection stands vibrantly on its own instead of like padding as an excuse to release the winning story in book form. It is an imaginative story (you can read it in full HERE, and I highly recommend it) that functions like a thought experiment about how society would be affected if our ability to sleep left us and became a separate, shadowy entity that follows us around. Armfield explores the social implications and ethical questions—of course someone will question “can we fuck it?” or “what if we murder it?”—but threads it through a somber and touching budding romance. This is rather consistent throughout the collection with stories injecting something fantastical in an otherwise mundane reality, asking how the change would affect relationships, society or our coping mechanism in general.
‘I choose Greek myths and ghost stories, tales that come in under fourteen pages and culminate in violent lessons. I read aloud and let her stop me when she wants to – stories of swans and spiders, bay trees, narcissi, girls transformed into monsters by rivals playing dirty.’
I’ve greatly enjoyed how horror has been embraced as a literary avenue for exploring ideas of identity in recent years (though the tradition is as old as the genre itself), with many queer and or BIPOC writers brilliantly crafting chilling stories by way of social critiques and Salt Slow successfully moves through horror to illustrate the underlying themes. In a conversation with The Guardian, Armfield discusses how ‘the entire point of so much good horror is the overcoming of patriarchal monsters, essentially,’ and we can see that alive and well in her stories. Especially through the ways her stories confront what it means to be a woman—or a queer woman—in modern society.
‘“The queer character has been so traditionally coded and designated as the monstrous…and I think I was trying to reclaim that monster. There’s freedom in the monster being the norm and not the other.’
Salt Slow makes excellent use of body horror as a way to celebrate women’s bodies. The characters frequently mention ‘I had a bad body around that time,’ or reference ‘problem skin,’ and Armfield urges us to embrace all bodies as beautiful and allow them to be as such even when society would call them flawed or monstrous. We find this in the opening story, Manti, which takes a sharp look at the journey through puberty into womanhood. The story juxtaposes the narrator’s peers, girls who are blossoming into bodies that inspire a hunger to be devoured by sexual appetites, with her own that is shedding skin and being instilled with a rather different hunger to devour male bodies.
‘They have witnessed the way things have stretched and mutated. There are things down there, growing. She had briefly been one of those things herself…’
Armfield plunges into the depths of womanhood to embrace the life beneath the surface that society tries to keep submerged. The ocean is a frequent motif in her works—particularly the mysteries that come floating up out of it—and her characters often identify with the murkiness beneath the waves. In Smack, a woman refuses to leave her husbands unused lakeside cottage during their divorce, feeling kindred to the jellyfish that have beached themselves in such numbers it has shocked the country, emboldened and defiant in her affinity for their masses that are ‘split open and unbodied, a mess of tentacles and bells and polyps that the men running clean-up operations have failed to sweep away.’ The ocean, which is often a symbol for women or motherhood in the myths and folklore tracing back through history, is also significant in the titular story about a pregnant woman and her partner adrift in the post-apocalypse where heavy rains have flooded the planet like a blend of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Noah of the Bible where women have reclaimed the focus. Though it is not the pregnancy or giving birth where the horror awakens in this story, but rather the legacy this act leaves behind.
It is no surprise, reading these, that Armfield would follow this collection with her debut novel, the deeply moving Our Wives Under the Sea. The makings of the novel are all on display here, not just in the focus on the mysteries under the surface but Armfield’s tendency to juggle the moment of horror with the arc of a relationship caught in the crossfire. This is most notable in Cassandra After, one of my favorite tales which features the decomposing body of a dead girlfriend coming to call months after her burial. The story is a tender yet tragic remembrance of a relationship, like a coming-of-age narrative of accepting one’s own queerness under an unwelcoming society that positions Cassandra’s catholicism as a barrier to the narrator’s ability to properly mourn. The story feels like a precursor to the novel—not a draft, per say, as it is fully realized and perfect in its own devastating way—and one of the highlights for the multiple queer relationships that populate this collection.
Though there are straight relationships in this collection as well. ‘There is no way to love a man,’ begins the story Granite which focuses on trying to find a fitting partner under the criticisms of friends, ‘not well, or rather, not correctly.’ Society always seems to butt in on interpersonal relationship and the characters feel less able to embrace themselves for themselves and more pressured to conform to the wishes of the masses (which, essentially, is a queer narrative as well). Though not every story is somber. The Collectibles is a rather humorous tale of a group of women roomates who, tired of the failures of relationships, dream up the idea of a perfect man. Which is all fine and dandy until one decides to create one Frankenstein-style. ‘“I don’t think [Salt Slow] will be unpalatable to men,’ Armfield jokes in interview, ‘it’s just that a lot of men die in it.’
‘As catholic girls, we are all a little awkward, the kind of girls grown slack and strange from too much inactivity and not enough contact with boys.’
This is a collection that celebrates women, but also one that ensures we remember that women have a place. In literature, in society, in their own agency and emotions. Formally Feral follows a girl who has experienced her parents divorce and then father’s remarriage to a woman who keeps a wolf as a daughter, the wolf becoming her protector and teaching her that she, too, has teeth to keep the monsters (abusive boys) at bay. But one of the biggest highlights of this book is Stop Your Women’s Ears with Wax, a story with a fresh narrative style that chronicles the tour of an all-woman band that serves as not only a rebuttal to patriarchal norms but a force that can shatter all expectations. Fans latch onto their songs about desire and it awakens the wildness that has been made dormant within them. ‘The call, the drag, the ache, the yearn, the need, whatever you want to call it.’ And things get intense.
‘On the news later, a brief video package. Girls bursting from the venue and howling across the street. The velvet rage of their small mouths, hair torn from their temples. A swollen werewolf moon…one can just make out the boy in the chip shop window, the way he moves his hands up at the breaking of the frontage glass. In a thick swathe, the girls reach out for him grabbing at his legs and neck and elbows pulling him out through the window. The clip ends shortly after that. Before the screaming and the rending. The camera swinging away to capture the mass of a thousand girls all racing forward down the street, a crooked note of music in the air.’
This tale of feral teenage girls devouring men in the streets is the Eras Tour we deserve (I was at the Detroit show and I will never stop talking about it, sorry not sorry, I’m actually wearing the t-shirt right now). Is it a cruel summer tour or the inevitable breaking to the surface of repressed emotion finally finding a voice? It reminds me of the book Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger, where author Soraya Chemaly discusses how when women are taught that exhibiting strong emotions, like those they find in the band's music, 'is undesirable, selfish, powerless, and ugly, we learn that we are undesirable, selfish, powerless, and ugly.' These repressed feelings turn inward, but Chemaly asserts that 'anger...invokes the possibility of change and of fighting back' and can be a useful tool in releasing the socially-coached shame.
'Anger is an assertion of rights and worth...It is intimacy, acceptance, fearlessness, embodiment, revolt, and reconciliation. Anger is memory and rage. It is rational thought and irrational pain. Anger is freedom...Anger is the expression of hope...Anger is usually about saying "no" in a world where women are conditioned to say almost anything but "no.”'
Armfield has stated her work attempts to reclaim the monster, to show the monstrous as a symbol of resistance against repression, and the image of all the bottled rage of a generation of girls exploding out from concert-hall doors is one hell of a way to capture that.
‘Cities could not be lived in but only haunted, that we would simply become two more ghosts in a place where ghosts already abound.’
Salt Slow is a gorgeous collection of stories and Julia Armfield wonderfully harnesses elements of horror to open up discussions on society ‘the way you crack a chest cavity.’ It is a quieter collection than you’d expect from the accolades and descriptions it brings, but I found that the quietness and rather soft delivery only added to my enjoyment as the stories seem to nestle deep within your mind, curled up like a cat that will bat at your thoughts for days to come. These stories are weird, yet wonderful and tease the imagination in ways that recall being a small child, watching shadows move across your walls and fearing they are more than light thrown against a pile of clothes on your chair—these stories are the realization that they are, in fact, something more.
4.5/5
‘I pressed my face to her chest in the too-soft place where the skin was still intact and felt I understood the way the surface of the world is thinner in certain places. that these places are where the strange, true things escape.’
September 5, 2022
Feminist lesbian short fiction IS NOT DEAD!
November 6, 2019
Longer review to come with a more detailed review of each story.
This is equal parts horrific and beautiful, tragic and grotesque, dark and divine. It’s my favorite short story collection that I’ve ever read and I’m already eager to get my hands on whatever Armfield writes next. Not to mention, multiple stories in this unsettling collection are about queer women and queer relationships. I heartily recommend it.
Update 11/5/19:
Eyyy, updating with longer story reviews a hot month after reading this. If you were waiting for a more in-depth look at these stories and what I thought of them then I'm glad you're here reading this.
Mantis - 5/5
Terrifying and engaging in a way that's impossible to look away from. This story about puberty and changes you can't go back from is incredibly haunting and it is a perfect introduction to the rest of the collection. It introduces you to Armfield's writing style, which is evocative and bone-chilling, and also sets the tone for these stories of horror and surrealism that center on women.
The Great Awake - 5/5
This is one of the softer stories in the collection, full of longing more than abject terror. It's about a world where one day peoples' sleep just leaves, lifts from their bodies and becomes a new figure that follows them throughout their now never-ending wakefulness. It also has a soft romance that just perfectly balances the gloom of being awake forever, no matter how tired you get. Plus that romance is queer! The first queer story of the collection.
The Collectibles - 4/5
Sometimes after a breakup you just have to set out on a Victor Frankenstein-esque path to avoid yet another rebound and also to avoid your PhD thesis. This story is strong and suitably disturbing, but the writing isn't quite as evocative here as it is in the others. But the lengths to which some of the characters go to avoid their theses is honest to god the biggest mood of all time. Just build yourself a boyfriend, it's fine.
Formerly Feral - 4.5/5
A celebration of girls who refuse to confirm, who allow themselves to become feral and frightening. Fuck yeah, feral girls. Really, this is a story about a girl whose new step sister is a literal, actual wolf and slowly but surely she gets to realize her feral personality can be shared and celebrated by her new wolf sibling. This was angry and creepy in the best way and it was such an adventure to read.
Stop Your Women's Ears With Wax - 5/5
I forgot to breathe while reading this story. It's full of the frenetic energy of women who are passionate, but with that twinge of horror. The power of female singer/songwriters and their clawing lyrics and the frenzy that follows if that frenzy was cranked up to eleven. Plus it has an angry, road crew f/f romance. If you happened to read Scotto Moore's fascinating novella Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You that was released earlier this year and you've been looking for more then this has got to be your follow up. I think my enjoyment of this story increased even more considering I read it immediately before I went to a female singer/songwriter concert and got to feel the obsessive passion of that live performance firsthand.
Granite - 4/5
Loved the imagery of this one, but I didn't quite understand the conclusion it came to. There's a lot of reflection on love and of letting another person into your life, and the slow building dread was perfect, but I wish there had been a bit more. Still really eerie and interesting.
Smack - 2.5/5
This was my least favorite of the collection, clearly. The speculative element is basically absent, which I thought was unfortunate, and I just didn't understand this narrator or the story that was being told. Honestly I think the biggest failing was that it wasn't bad, necessarily, just forgettable amidst all of the other incredible works in the book.
Cassandra - 5/5
A ghost story that hit a little too close to home. It's haunting and regretful, full of messy queerness and the confused process of mourning. It's sad and kind of hard to read, but it's also a beautiful way to process the loss of someone especially when you had a relationship full of contradictions and confusion. (This is the word for word note I took upon finishing this story, which left me feeling raw, so that's going to be my full takeaway from Cassandra)
Salt Slow - 5/5
I couldn't have been more pleased with the final story in this collection. Salt Slow is an apocalyptic world of water alongside the terror of new motherhood. This is a story about a pregnant woman, adrift with just her partner in a world that has been completely flooded, as she realizes that the thing in her womb might not be entirely human. It's a horrifying read, which makes it an absolutely perfect conclusion.
Average rating: 4.44
Final rating: 5/5
I know I bumped the average a bit on this one but I simply couldn't imagine not giving this collection 5 stars. Its strong stories far outweigh the couple that don't land quite as well and I was utterly obsessed with ever page. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for short fiction, particularly speculative horror.
This is equal parts horrific and beautiful, tragic and grotesque, dark and divine. It’s my favorite short story collection that I’ve ever read and I’m already eager to get my hands on whatever Armfield writes next. Not to mention, multiple stories in this unsettling collection are about queer women and queer relationships. I heartily recommend it.
Update 11/5/19:
Eyyy, updating with longer story reviews a hot month after reading this. If you were waiting for a more in-depth look at these stories and what I thought of them then I'm glad you're here reading this.
Mantis - 5/5
Terrifying and engaging in a way that's impossible to look away from. This story about puberty and changes you can't go back from is incredibly haunting and it is a perfect introduction to the rest of the collection. It introduces you to Armfield's writing style, which is evocative and bone-chilling, and also sets the tone for these stories of horror and surrealism that center on women.
The Great Awake - 5/5
This is one of the softer stories in the collection, full of longing more than abject terror. It's about a world where one day peoples' sleep just leaves, lifts from their bodies and becomes a new figure that follows them throughout their now never-ending wakefulness. It also has a soft romance that just perfectly balances the gloom of being awake forever, no matter how tired you get. Plus that romance is queer! The first queer story of the collection.
The Collectibles - 4/5
Sometimes after a breakup you just have to set out on a Victor Frankenstein-esque path to avoid yet another rebound and also to avoid your PhD thesis. This story is strong and suitably disturbing, but the writing isn't quite as evocative here as it is in the others. But the lengths to which some of the characters go to avoid their theses is honest to god the biggest mood of all time. Just build yourself a boyfriend, it's fine.
Formerly Feral - 4.5/5
A celebration of girls who refuse to confirm, who allow themselves to become feral and frightening. Fuck yeah, feral girls. Really, this is a story about a girl whose new step sister is a literal, actual wolf and slowly but surely she gets to realize her feral personality can be shared and celebrated by her new wolf sibling. This was angry and creepy in the best way and it was such an adventure to read.
Stop Your Women's Ears With Wax - 5/5
I forgot to breathe while reading this story. It's full of the frenetic energy of women who are passionate, but with that twinge of horror. The power of female singer/songwriters and their clawing lyrics and the frenzy that follows if that frenzy was cranked up to eleven. Plus it has an angry, road crew f/f romance. If you happened to read Scotto Moore's fascinating novella Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You that was released earlier this year and you've been looking for more then this has got to be your follow up. I think my enjoyment of this story increased even more considering I read it immediately before I went to a female singer/songwriter concert and got to feel the obsessive passion of that live performance firsthand.
Granite - 4/5
Loved the imagery of this one, but I didn't quite understand the conclusion it came to. There's a lot of reflection on love and of letting another person into your life, and the slow building dread was perfect, but I wish there had been a bit more. Still really eerie and interesting.
Smack - 2.5/5
This was my least favorite of the collection, clearly. The speculative element is basically absent, which I thought was unfortunate, and I just didn't understand this narrator or the story that was being told. Honestly I think the biggest failing was that it wasn't bad, necessarily, just forgettable amidst all of the other incredible works in the book.
Cassandra - 5/5
A ghost story that hit a little too close to home. It's haunting and regretful, full of messy queerness and the confused process of mourning. It's sad and kind of hard to read, but it's also a beautiful way to process the loss of someone especially when you had a relationship full of contradictions and confusion. (This is the word for word note I took upon finishing this story, which left me feeling raw, so that's going to be my full takeaway from Cassandra)
Salt Slow - 5/5
I couldn't have been more pleased with the final story in this collection. Salt Slow is an apocalyptic world of water alongside the terror of new motherhood. This is a story about a pregnant woman, adrift with just her partner in a world that has been completely flooded, as she realizes that the thing in her womb might not be entirely human. It's a horrifying read, which makes it an absolutely perfect conclusion.
Average rating: 4.44
Final rating: 5/5
I know I bumped the average a bit on this one but I simply couldn't imagine not giving this collection 5 stars. Its strong stories far outweigh the couple that don't land quite as well and I was utterly obsessed with ever page. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for short fiction, particularly speculative horror.
Want to read
October 28, 2024reading one story a day so i don't get too spooked
November 20, 2024
this is a really beautiful collection of short stories, all having the ebb and flow of the sea crafted seamlessly into them. i enjoyed this so much, that i actually think this solidifies that julie armfield is my newest favorite author, and i just hope she keeps giving the world (and me) her stories.
down below i breakdown each individual story in this anthology collection, with the trigger and content warnings that i wrote down while reading!
━━♡ Mantis ★★★★
this was a very strong start to the anthology, and there is just something so insanely lulling about this author's writing to me. it for sure reminded me of how much i loved our wives under the sea and it has really similar vibes at first, too! but this is a story about those transformative years, of being a girl and growing up surrounded by people and things that are also transforming you and the way you think and feel (about yourself and the world). shedding your childhood and growing into a body that is being dictated by others while you're still in metamorphosis and learning what your truly want to transform into. and the ending was just great. plus, you all know i'm also going to love a growing up catholic backdrop on top of a really compelling story.
cw/tw: this short story has a lot of talk of body image and parents and friends talking about the mc's body image, also talk of weight and diet and starvation and food, talk of menstruation, blood, drinking, threat of sa, and i would also say just sickness in general with some body horror
━━♡ The Great Sleep ★★★★
this is the type of story crafting where i am just impressively saying "wow, this is so cool, how did you think this up?" and then upon finishing my mind is going wild with metaphor meanings. but this is a tale of a wave of sleeplessness hits the world, and the people impacted now have a personification of their sleep that just kind of hangs out with them and makes life more annoying while they are more and more sleep deprived. and our mc finds comfort in her dreamlessness with someone in her apartment complex who is still able to sleep, even if she is constantly questioning why she hasn't stopped along with most people.
i feel like this instantly made me think of vegas, my current city, and how there is a magic to the restlessness that is pretty indescribable, even if you know it's not the healthiest. but i think this story could be a metaphor for mental health, i think it could maybe be touching on abuse, or maybe how loneliness can feel all consuming. i think this might be about health and people saying wild shit as reasonings for serious things, or if could just be a cool story that i know will stick with me. i really enjoyed this one.
cw/tw: things with sleep and the miserableness of being sleep deprived
━━♡ The Collectables ★★
three women living together, all friends trying to get their phds, who all have been hurt by men. and we get to see one of the women spiraling more and more with her line-drawn paper doll that she is adding bits slowly to. this wasn't my favorite, sadly, but maybe that's because my american ass has to google princess anne and then that really just set the tone for picturing the rest of the story in my mind lol.
cw/tw: fire, drinking, smoking, suicide mention, heart attack mention
━━♡ Formally Feral ★★★
sadly, i feel like i overhyped this one for myself. during a divorce, two young girls get separated between the parents, and we follow the child that stays with her father. yet, soon after, the father remarries a neighbor who has a wolf for a daughter, and we get to watch them grow up together. i know i like the themes of this, but for some reason the execution just fell short for me.
tw/cw: divorce, neglect, abandonment, bullying, menstruation, blood, fighting
━━♡ Stop Your Women's Ears with Wax ★★★
me and evie going on tour with all the other orbits for loona lol. no no, okay this story focuses on a very popular girl group, and their incredible fanbase, and two girls who are working on the crew for this tour. and sinister things keep happening on the tour bus and during each city stop. but this is a story about anger and rage and connecting with other people who feel that same anger and rage when you feel like the rest of the world is ignoring it. about pushing back, when you feel you're not being heard or seen. i obviously love the message of this one, i love seeing the romance extra with this setting, and i had a good time with this.
tw/cw: many mentions of violence (car accident, riots, assault), vomit, blood
━━♡ Granite ★★★★★
maggie is 29 and wondering if it's time to settle down with a man who seems better than the rest. she is asking her friends for advice, yet something is going on and someone in her housing complex is also noticing. the pressure from your family, your friends, the entire world to be what is perceived as "normal" and doing things a certain way so you won't regret it later in life.. my god that weight is crushing. especially when you're approaching thirty / in your thirties and the weight of all those expectations from outside factors are also making you feel like you're depreciating by the second. this story story just really perfectly hit for me, in a deeply felt way, and really made me think about the word loneliness and how combatting that can look very different. and also, how as humans, our experiences make us never truly alone (aka: me reading this short story through the tears streaming down my face). also, this story feels like it has a side of comphet discussion, which is always appreciated.
tw/cw: metaphorical illness / sickness
━━♡ Smack ★★★★
this was a beautiful, haunting story about a girl who went from her father controlling her, to her husband also trying to control her - the way generation after generation of men like to do to women, especially the ones they claim to love. and in this take we get to see our mc refusing the leave her beach house during a divorce, and jellyfish are flooding the shoreline and making people question a lot of their thoughts on uncontrollable creatures who are able to break expectations, even if only briefly.
tw/cw: rough mental health (probably depression), not being able to sleep, lawyers demanding things of you, divorce, bad relationship in the past, mention of loss of father in past
━━♡ Cassandra After ★★★★
listen, a story about growing up catholic and being queer is always going to combination that is very deeply felt by me. the guilt, shame, and self punishment is just something that can be very real, and in this story we get to see our mc struggling, both past and present, after the loss of her partner. ahhh, this just really made me feel so many things, but just so much sadness. we also always love some aro/ace discussions being started - and how that can make discovering yourself/labels more difficult sometimes, too. (also, i loved a bonus tie-in from the other short story.)
tw/cw: loss of a partner / loved one, depression depiction, grief, self harm mention (pulling out fingernails), homophobia, cheating
━━♡ Salt Slow ★★★★
this final short story is a dystopian talk of two people on a boat, living while the whole world is underwater. we get to see some of their past, and how things in their relationships shaped their present, and we even get some odyssey cameos. this was really heartbreaking to read, but it was so beautifully crafted. and i think that depression, especially after an isolating loss, really could make one feel like they are living in this world depicted. ahh, i won't lie, these last two stories in the collection feel like they have taken a lot from me. but i think that is a testament to how good of an author julia is.
tw/cw: starvation/hunger, pregnancy, talk of miscarrying / loss of a child, blood, death, drowning, dead sea life mentions
━━♡ buddy read with evie
blog | instagram | youtube | wishlist | spotify | amazon
♡ Our Wives Under the Sea ★★★★★
down below i breakdown each individual story in this anthology collection, with the trigger and content warnings that i wrote down while reading!
━━♡ Mantis ★★★★
“I choose Greek myths and ghost stories, tales that come in under fourteen pages and culminate in violent lessons. I read aloud and let her stop me when she wants to – stories of swans and spiders, bay trees, narcissi, girls transformed into monsters by rivals playing dirty.”
this was a very strong start to the anthology, and there is just something so insanely lulling about this author's writing to me. it for sure reminded me of how much i loved our wives under the sea and it has really similar vibes at first, too! but this is a story about those transformative years, of being a girl and growing up surrounded by people and things that are also transforming you and the way you think and feel (about yourself and the world). shedding your childhood and growing into a body that is being dictated by others while you're still in metamorphosis and learning what your truly want to transform into. and the ending was just great. plus, you all know i'm also going to love a growing up catholic backdrop on top of a really compelling story.
cw/tw: this short story has a lot of talk of body image and parents and friends talking about the mc's body image, also talk of weight and diet and starvation and food, talk of menstruation, blood, drinking, threat of sa, and i would also say just sickness in general with some body horror
━━♡ The Great Sleep ★★★★
“You don't notice the way a city breathes until it changes its sleeping habits.”
this is the type of story crafting where i am just impressively saying "wow, this is so cool, how did you think this up?" and then upon finishing my mind is going wild with metaphor meanings. but this is a tale of a wave of sleeplessness hits the world, and the people impacted now have a personification of their sleep that just kind of hangs out with them and makes life more annoying while they are more and more sleep deprived. and our mc finds comfort in her dreamlessness with someone in her apartment complex who is still able to sleep, even if she is constantly questioning why she hasn't stopped along with most people.
i feel like this instantly made me think of vegas, my current city, and how there is a magic to the restlessness that is pretty indescribable, even if you know it's not the healthiest. but i think this story could be a metaphor for mental health, i think it could maybe be touching on abuse, or maybe how loneliness can feel all consuming. i think this might be about health and people saying wild shit as reasonings for serious things, or if could just be a cool story that i know will stick with me. i really enjoyed this one.
cw/tw: things with sleep and the miserableness of being sleep deprived
━━♡ The Collectables ★★
“That's the problem with kissing. In theory, when someone's good at it, you should be able to keep kissing forever. But of course, forever is too long to do anything without getting bored.”
three women living together, all friends trying to get their phds, who all have been hurt by men. and we get to see one of the women spiraling more and more with her line-drawn paper doll that she is adding bits slowly to. this wasn't my favorite, sadly, but maybe that's because my american ass has to google princess anne and then that really just set the tone for picturing the rest of the story in my mind lol.
cw/tw: fire, drinking, smoking, suicide mention, heart attack mention
━━♡ Formally Feral ★★★
“The house opened around her the way you crack a chest cavity, the ribs of it, the unnatural gape.”
sadly, i feel like i overhyped this one for myself. during a divorce, two young girls get separated between the parents, and we follow the child that stays with her father. yet, soon after, the father remarries a neighbor who has a wolf for a daughter, and we get to watch them grow up together. i know i like the themes of this, but for some reason the execution just fell short for me.
tw/cw: divorce, neglect, abandonment, bullying, menstruation, blood, fighting
━━♡ Stop Your Women's Ears with Wax ★★★
“...you don't come to a party you weren't invited to.”
me and evie going on tour with all the other orbits for loona lol. no no, okay this story focuses on a very popular girl group, and their incredible fanbase, and two girls who are working on the crew for this tour. and sinister things keep happening on the tour bus and during each city stop. but this is a story about anger and rage and connecting with other people who feel that same anger and rage when you feel like the rest of the world is ignoring it. about pushing back, when you feel you're not being heard or seen. i obviously love the message of this one, i love seeing the romance extra with this setting, and i had a good time with this.
tw/cw: many mentions of violence (car accident, riots, assault), vomit, blood
━━♡ Granite ★★★★★
“Maggie always found it a little unfair that her mother should encourage her to be fiercely independent, whilst also making a horror story out of being alone.”
maggie is 29 and wondering if it's time to settle down with a man who seems better than the rest. she is asking her friends for advice, yet something is going on and someone in her housing complex is also noticing. the pressure from your family, your friends, the entire world to be what is perceived as "normal" and doing things a certain way so you won't regret it later in life.. my god that weight is crushing. especially when you're approaching thirty / in your thirties and the weight of all those expectations from outside factors are also making you feel like you're depreciating by the second. this story story just really perfectly hit for me, in a deeply felt way, and really made me think about the word loneliness and how combatting that can look very different. and also, how as humans, our experiences make us never truly alone (aka: me reading this short story through the tears streaming down my face). also, this story feels like it has a side of comphet discussion, which is always appreciated.
tw/cw: metaphorical illness / sickness
━━♡ Smack ★★★★
“From this pretense of space, she can play-act other nights, other weekends, when the house was furnished with more than the memory of things.”
this was a beautiful, haunting story about a girl who went from her father controlling her, to her husband also trying to control her - the way generation after generation of men like to do to women, especially the ones they claim to love. and in this take we get to see our mc refusing the leave her beach house during a divorce, and jellyfish are flooding the shoreline and making people question a lot of their thoughts on uncontrollable creatures who are able to break expectations, even if only briefly.
tw/cw: rough mental health (probably depression), not being able to sleep, lawyers demanding things of you, divorce, bad relationship in the past, mention of loss of father in past
━━♡ Cassandra After ★★★★
“She slid an arm around me and kissed me on the side of the mouth in a way that made me love her terribly, though I had promised God the opposite only minuets before.”
listen, a story about growing up catholic and being queer is always going to combination that is very deeply felt by me. the guilt, shame, and self punishment is just something that can be very real, and in this story we get to see our mc struggling, both past and present, after the loss of her partner. ahhh, this just really made me feel so many things, but just so much sadness. we also always love some aro/ace discussions being started - and how that can make discovering yourself/labels more difficult sometimes, too. (also, i loved a bonus tie-in from the other short story.)
tw/cw: loss of a partner / loved one, depression depiction, grief, self harm mention (pulling out fingernails), homophobia, cheating
━━♡ Salt Slow ★★★★
“A very slender sort of betrayal, the deliberate absence from a room.”
this final short story is a dystopian talk of two people on a boat, living while the whole world is underwater. we get to see some of their past, and how things in their relationships shaped their present, and we even get some odyssey cameos. this was really heartbreaking to read, but it was so beautifully crafted. and i think that depression, especially after an isolating loss, really could make one feel like they are living in this world depicted. ahh, i won't lie, these last two stories in the collection feel like they have taken a lot from me. but i think that is a testament to how good of an author julia is.
tw/cw: starvation/hunger, pregnancy, talk of miscarrying / loss of a child, blood, death, drowning, dead sea life mentions
━━♡ buddy read with evie
blog | instagram | youtube | wishlist | spotify | amazon
♡ Our Wives Under the Sea ★★★★★
September 26, 2020
“The sky is gory with stars, like the insides of a gutted night.”
Wow. Wow wow wow. This book blew me away! If you’re a fan of dark, weird, macabre, beautifully written stories, then you need to read Salt Slow, a collection of nine distinct tales about womanhood. But these stories focus on unruly women, the best kind.
What I love most about these stories is that they are rooted in the mundane, but then Armfield introduces these details that elevate the stories from everyday humdrum scenarios to the weird and unusual. And it’s all executed in such a gorgeously vivid haunting way. I was obsessed from the very first story.
Each of the 9 stories are unique and memorable. We have women obsessed with creating the perfect man in the form of a Frankenstein-like monster, a girl who has a wolf as a stepsister, a woman’s girlfriend who claws out of her grave to visit her former lover, an all-female band who’s fans turn violent... the scope and imagination that Armfield demonstrates is amazing!
I loved every single story, but the one that REALLY stood out for me was The Great Awake, wherein a city begins to suffer from insomnia as sleep becomes a shadow-like form that leaves their bodies. These people are able to remain awake without needing rest, but not everyone loses their “sleep”. I need a NOVEL about this, please. It was fascinating.
Easily one of the best short story collections I’ve ever read. And the queer representation is on point too - multiple f/f relationships. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to sit here and twiddle my thumbs, waiting on what Armfield does next...
Thanks to @ab_reads for gifting this to me! I’m not sure I would have picked it up on my own!
Wow. Wow wow wow. This book blew me away! If you’re a fan of dark, weird, macabre, beautifully written stories, then you need to read Salt Slow, a collection of nine distinct tales about womanhood. But these stories focus on unruly women, the best kind.
What I love most about these stories is that they are rooted in the mundane, but then Armfield introduces these details that elevate the stories from everyday humdrum scenarios to the weird and unusual. And it’s all executed in such a gorgeously vivid haunting way. I was obsessed from the very first story.
Each of the 9 stories are unique and memorable. We have women obsessed with creating the perfect man in the form of a Frankenstein-like monster, a girl who has a wolf as a stepsister, a woman’s girlfriend who claws out of her grave to visit her former lover, an all-female band who’s fans turn violent... the scope and imagination that Armfield demonstrates is amazing!
I loved every single story, but the one that REALLY stood out for me was The Great Awake, wherein a city begins to suffer from insomnia as sleep becomes a shadow-like form that leaves their bodies. These people are able to remain awake without needing rest, but not everyone loses their “sleep”. I need a NOVEL about this, please. It was fascinating.
Easily one of the best short story collections I’ve ever read. And the queer representation is on point too - multiple f/f relationships. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to sit here and twiddle my thumbs, waiting on what Armfield does next...
Thanks to @ab_reads for gifting this to me! I’m not sure I would have picked it up on my own!
Want to read
February 19, 2024every author i like should be legally obligated to release a short story collection
January 15, 2024
“Before him, she had often wondered whether solitude was a skill one could lose, like schoolgirl latin. Or whether it was simply a talent one acquired, bikelike, never afterwards forgotten.”
4.5/5 stars
A mesmerizing collection magical realism of short stories from a debut author that I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for in the future.
This collection gave me major Kirsty Logan-, Jen Campbell- and Samantha Hunt- vibes, which automatically lets you know it was very much up my alley. It consists of 9 tales that explore themes of female adolescence, body, love and change, whilst consistently balancing the tightrope of the line between reality and bizarre imagination.
Julia Armfield has a beautiful way with words and imagery, where she turns the average upside down and inside out, to show what’s at its core emotionally.
As a whole it’s a well-balanced collection that feels coherent, and I liked the majority of stories with the exception of only one.
As with any magical realism, there is going to be an element of hit-or-miss based on personal taste. I think the backflap and title (including the stunning cover) do a great job of representing the books content:
“women become insects, men turn to stone, a city becomes insomniac and bodies are picked apart to make up better ones”…
If that’s the kind of description that draws you in, this is most likely going to be a book for you, as it was for me.
Ratings per story:
- Mantis: 4/5
- The Great Sleep 4/5
- The Collectables 3/5
- Formally Feral 2/5
- Stop your Womens Ears with wax 2/5
- Granite 5/5
- Smack 4/5
- Cassandra After 5/5
- Salt Slow 5/5
4.5/5 stars
A mesmerizing collection magical realism of short stories from a debut author that I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for in the future.
This collection gave me major Kirsty Logan-, Jen Campbell- and Samantha Hunt- vibes, which automatically lets you know it was very much up my alley. It consists of 9 tales that explore themes of female adolescence, body, love and change, whilst consistently balancing the tightrope of the line between reality and bizarre imagination.
Julia Armfield has a beautiful way with words and imagery, where she turns the average upside down and inside out, to show what’s at its core emotionally.
As a whole it’s a well-balanced collection that feels coherent, and I liked the majority of stories with the exception of only one.
As with any magical realism, there is going to be an element of hit-or-miss based on personal taste. I think the backflap and title (including the stunning cover) do a great job of representing the books content:
“women become insects, men turn to stone, a city becomes insomniac and bodies are picked apart to make up better ones”…
If that’s the kind of description that draws you in, this is most likely going to be a book for you, as it was for me.
Ratings per story:
- Mantis: 4/5
- The Great Sleep 4/5
- The Collectables 3/5
- Formally Feral 2/5
- Stop your Womens Ears with wax 2/5
- Granite 5/5
- Smack 4/5
- Cassandra After 5/5
- Salt Slow 5/5
October 21, 2022
An enticing, surreal assembly of stories that examines transformation, and the wondrous power of the feminine body. This collection explores the struggles to embrace sexuality and identity, the catharsis of coming to terms with the fact that people change and grow apart, some loss is permanent and ever present. Written with a beautiful mix of genres and tone, Salt Slow is an ode to all “dangerous women.”
September 15, 2019
I am incredibly torn about how to review this book. Armfield’s writing is brilliant - her prose is visceral and haunting. However, it’s almost too visceral. Whilst I have absolutely no qualms with the writing or it’s effectiveness, these stories were stomach-churningly disturbing to say the least, so much so that each time I put down the book, I was reluctant to pick it up again.
I haven’t felt so sickened by literary imagery since reading Ballard’s ‘Crash’. Along with that, the stories are deeply dark and depressing. Whilst they were largely fantastical in element, the real-world images and concepts they alluded to or allegorised were horrifyingly close to home and I found myself registers by extremely upsetting thoughts.
Whilst I loved the writing style and sheer talent of the author, I was left feeling relieved to have finished and hopeful to forget the images the book imprinted in my mind as soon as possible. That power of writing is nothing short of a huge compliment to the author and her fascinating talent, but because of my personal sensitivity to suicide, death and depression, It’s not something I would ever want to read again (or could). Nevertheless, I won’t allow my personal response to the book to taint this author’s credibility which is why I rated it as highly as I did.
I haven’t felt so sickened by literary imagery since reading Ballard’s ‘Crash’. Along with that, the stories are deeply dark and depressing. Whilst they were largely fantastical in element, the real-world images and concepts they alluded to or allegorised were horrifyingly close to home and I found myself registers by extremely upsetting thoughts.
Whilst I loved the writing style and sheer talent of the author, I was left feeling relieved to have finished and hopeful to forget the images the book imprinted in my mind as soon as possible. That power of writing is nothing short of a huge compliment to the author and her fascinating talent, but because of my personal sensitivity to suicide, death and depression, It’s not something I would ever want to read again (or could). Nevertheless, I won’t allow my personal response to the book to taint this author’s credibility which is why I rated it as highly as I did.
August 30, 2024
I think I might have just found a new auto-add-to-TBR author. Armfield's literary voice is somewhere between Kate Folk's in that it is both weird in a charming and also somehow off-putting way and Rachel Cusk's in that it is very beautiful and satisfying to read. I am in love with her writing style.
My favorite stories from the collection:
Smack, my only note for the story was "well that was stunning", I loved the humor, the imagery, the character it was just beautifully done.
Cassandra After, there's a line in the story that goes "it can't always be about shame" and my response was "WATCH ME", the Catholic guilt is strong here so I loved the representation (the guilt is pretty much the only thing I kept from being Catholic).
Granite, just for the line "that sudden monstering" which had no business being so good.
My favorite stories from the collection:
Smack, my only note for the story was "well that was stunning", I loved the humor, the imagery, the character it was just beautifully done.
Cassandra After, there's a line in the story that goes "it can't always be about shame" and my response was "WATCH ME", the Catholic guilt is strong here so I loved the representation (the guilt is pretty much the only thing I kept from being Catholic).
Granite, just for the line "that sudden monstering" which had no business being so good.
September 13, 2019
Dark, twisted and very well written.
August 15, 2019
4.5/5. This is one of the best short story collections I've ever read!
Julia Armfield writes brilliantly eerie, evocative and inventive stories about women's bodies and experiences. In these stories, an entire city becomes insomniac as sleep grows into a physical entity that escapes its owners, an all-female rock band's army of loyal teenage fans develop an uncontrollable power and in a post-apocalyptic world of water, dark things lurk in the deep. In Armfield's imagination, mundane, everyday things gain a dark and thoroughly other quality, while sinister scenarios become horrifyingly ordinary.
There wasn't a single bad story in this collection, only one I didn't jell with as much (Smack) but still liked overall. There were, however, quite a few stories that stood out especially and that are among the best pieces of dark, twisted short fiction I've ever had the pleasure of reading. My absolute favourites were The Collectables (build-a-boyfriend gone awry), Formerly Feral (the best twist on "Peter and the Wolf" imaginable), Stop your women's ears with wax (never underestimate the power of teenage fanaticism) and the title story, salt slow (post-apocalyptic bleakness meets the primal horror of pregnancy – I would not recommend reading this while actually pregnant).
All of these stories were entirely memorable in their own way and will likely stay with me for a very long time. I'm absolutely hooked on Julia Armfield's writing now and will definitely be reading whatever she comes out with next.
Julia Armfield writes brilliantly eerie, evocative and inventive stories about women's bodies and experiences. In these stories, an entire city becomes insomniac as sleep grows into a physical entity that escapes its owners, an all-female rock band's army of loyal teenage fans develop an uncontrollable power and in a post-apocalyptic world of water, dark things lurk in the deep. In Armfield's imagination, mundane, everyday things gain a dark and thoroughly other quality, while sinister scenarios become horrifyingly ordinary.
There wasn't a single bad story in this collection, only one I didn't jell with as much (Smack) but still liked overall. There were, however, quite a few stories that stood out especially and that are among the best pieces of dark, twisted short fiction I've ever had the pleasure of reading. My absolute favourites were The Collectables (build-a-boyfriend gone awry), Formerly Feral (the best twist on "Peter and the Wolf" imaginable), Stop your women's ears with wax (never underestimate the power of teenage fanaticism) and the title story, salt slow (post-apocalyptic bleakness meets the primal horror of pregnancy – I would not recommend reading this while actually pregnant).
All of these stories were entirely memorable in their own way and will likely stay with me for a very long time. I'm absolutely hooked on Julia Armfield's writing now and will definitely be reading whatever she comes out with next.
April 29, 2024
julia armfield could write anything and I swear I would read it...
some quotes to force you to pick up one of her books:
'the house opened around her the way you crack a chest cavity, the ribs of it, the unnatural gape.'
'in the midst of all these haunted people, she sat alone, without a ghost yet longing for one, her writing like a clasp of fingers around empty air.'
'the sky is gory with stars, like the insides of a gutted night.'
some quotes to force you to pick up one of her books:
'the house opened around her the way you crack a chest cavity, the ribs of it, the unnatural gape.'
'in the midst of all these haunted people, she sat alone, without a ghost yet longing for one, her writing like a clasp of fingers around empty air.'
'the sky is gory with stars, like the insides of a gutted night.'
December 11, 2019
4.5 stars
Jane Austen once wrote in one of her letters, “Pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked”; she might as well have written Salt Slow's thesis.
Salt Slow is a short-story collection about problem women. The first line of the book is, after all, "I have my Grandmother's skin. Problem skin." Problem skin, problem women. The women of this collection are problem women because they are simply too much: too greedy, too selfish, too obsessive, too dependent. Put another way, they are problem women because they are unruly. And what is so brilliant about Salt Slow is that instead of trying to temper the unruliness of its women, it unabashedly leans into—even celebrates—it. It says, These women are problem women—so what? It never tries to make its women anything less than what they are: ferocious, gross, lazy, needy, careless. Indeed, these are women whose desires and emotions are so extreme they literally push against the bounds of reality: every one of Armfield's stories contains a surrealist/magical realist element, one seamlessly woven into the fabric of its protagonist's life.
I mean, look at some of these descriptions:
let 👏 women 👏 be 👏 flawed 👏 I didn't know how much I needed to read about flawed women until I read this book.
Also, Armfield's writing is MAGNIFICENT. Haunting, dark, beautiful. Truly. Again, I'll let her writing speak for itself.
What more can I say? I fucking loved this. It might be (probably is) my favourite short-story collection ever.
"We are frenetic with hunger, with wanting, with the repentance of the season. We laugh like hyenas, our heads thrusting forward from our bodies."
Jane Austen once wrote in one of her letters, “Pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked”; she might as well have written Salt Slow's thesis.
Salt Slow is a short-story collection about problem women. The first line of the book is, after all, "I have my Grandmother's skin. Problem skin." Problem skin, problem women. The women of this collection are problem women because they are simply too much: too greedy, too selfish, too obsessive, too dependent. Put another way, they are problem women because they are unruly. And what is so brilliant about Salt Slow is that instead of trying to temper the unruliness of its women, it unabashedly leans into—even celebrates—it. It says, These women are problem women—so what? It never tries to make its women anything less than what they are: ferocious, gross, lazy, needy, careless. Indeed, these are women whose desires and emotions are so extreme they literally push against the bounds of reality: every one of Armfield's stories contains a surrealist/magical realist element, one seamlessly woven into the fabric of its protagonist's life.
I mean, look at some of these descriptions:
"Beneath her dressing gown, she is bloody with mosquito bites. Unrazored beneath the arms, unplucked, unmoistured."
"I had a bad body around that time - creaking joints and difficult digestion, a martyr to mouth ulcers and bleeding gums."
"Beneath my dress, my skin is churning. My legs feel cracked in half, articulated - a spreading and a shifting, as though my bones are springing out of their intended slots."
let 👏 women 👏 be 👏 flawed 👏 I didn't know how much I needed to read about flawed women until I read this book.
Also, Armfield's writing is MAGNIFICENT. Haunting, dark, beautiful. Truly. Again, I'll let her writing speak for itself.
"When I was twenty-seven, my Sleep stepped out of me like a passenger from a train carriage, looked around my room for several seconds, then sat down in the chair beside my bed."
"The jellyfish come with the morning - a great beaching, bodies black on sand. The ocean empties, a thousand dead and dying invertebrates, jungled tentacles and fine, fragile membranes blanketing the shore two miles in each direction. They are translucent, almost spectral, as though the sea has exorcised its ghosts."
"Nicola watches the gentle pull of outgoing water, the glassy sink and swallow, waves drawing back like lips revealing teeth."
"The sky is gory with stars, like the insides of a gutted night."
What more can I say? I fucking loved this. It might be (probably is) my favourite short-story collection ever.
July 31, 2024
I choose Greek myths and ghost stories, tales that come in under fourteen pages and culminate in violent lessons. I read aloud and let her stop me when she wants to – stories of swans and spiders, bay trees, narcissi, girls transformed into monsters by rivals playing dirty.
- Mantis
Julia Armfield já foi comparada a Angela Carter, a grande subversora dos contos de fadas, e apesar de eu, pessoalmente, a equiparar mais às grandes contistas argentinas da sua geração, Agustina Bazterrica e Samanta Schweblin, com o seu horror corporal e os seus ambientes inquietantes, foram os filmes de terror que deram origem a “Salt Slow”, um título inspirado em “Sob o Bosque de Leite” de Dylan Thomas: “É a noite avançando nas ruas, a procissão salgada do vento vagaroso e musical por Coronation Street e Cockle Row.”
Diz Armfield que trabalha a partir de imagens dando pouco valor ao enredo e, realmente, com o seu poder de descrição e frases bem torneadas, cria situações inusitadas recorrendo ao sobrenatural, ao realismo mágico e à inversão dos papéis tradicionais do horror, fazendo dos homens as vítimas ao serem confrontados com mulheres transgressoras, doseando bem o ridículo com o trágico. Tem havido muito hype em relação a “Our Wives Under the Sea” e o mesmo está a acontecer com o recém-publicado “Private Rites”, por isso, ao ler estes contos, que constituem a sua estreia como autora, compreendo e subscrevo todos os elogios.
Mantis- 4,5*
‘It’s hereditary,’ my Mother says, assessing her reflection in Mrs Weir’s make-up mirror after applying a different colour shadow to each eyelid. ‘Difficult puberties.’ ‘– what am I thinking of ?’ Mrs Weir burbles on, twisting the cap on a tube of cream like the wringing of a neck. ‘The poor people you see in the movies with the skin. You know? The ones with the bells.’ ‘You’re thinking of leprosy,’ I say (…) ‘You know what I do have is a lovely piece of kit that’s technically meant for stretch marks, but it might do as cover for you. Look here. The burn victims like this one, see.’
The Great Awake – 5*
It became so swiftly ordinary – not a thing to be longed for, but nothing whatsoever to be done. Like chicken pox, inevitable. People slept until their Sleeps stepped out of them, then they went on living awake. Shortly after our first encounter on the seventh floor, people in my building stopped sleeping at a rate of about one a night. Mine appeared early, an awkward guest to whom I first thought to offer tea or the newspaper, though I quickly discovered that Sleep was not a companion who wanted much entertaining.
The Collectables – 4,5*
We burned what we could of Simon Phillips in a pit at the end of the garden. Jenny held her hands over the flames – a bonfire of the final boyfriend: photographs with eyes scratched out, a note he had written on a napkin, the grisly confetti of toenail clippings she had pulled from the bathroom bin.
Formerly Feral – 4,5*
The wolf was named Helen, having been named after both Helen of Troy and St Helen of Constantinople, who reputedly discovered the true cross in Golgotha in AD 337. She was dust-coloured, slavered more or less constantly, which wasn’t attractive, and had the other unfortunate habits of defecating in the corner of the kitchen and gnawing on table legs. In the early days of his second marriage, my Father took great pleasure in citing all of the literary precedents for her presence in our lives, although he owned that from Romulus and Remus to Mowgli, the more usual setup involved wolves adopting humans, not the other way around.
Stop your women’s hears with wax – 3*
The band – their long hair, their flaring nostrils – reappearing to the kind of clamour Mona has only ever seen re- served for the Beatles; weeping female fans in strips of documentary footage, fingers reaching up into eye sockets, digging down with a violence made slippery by tears. It is not a reaction she is used to seeing for a girl band.
Granite -4*
Her friends are nurses, midwives, physical therapists. They discuss the issue with clinical focus over Chenin blanc and Twiglets. Men, they say, are not built to withstand the same internal pressures. You can see it in their hips, the way they breathe after running. A lack in anatomical endurance. From a purely physical perspective, it is hard to love a man without breaking him apart.
Smack – 3*
The jellyfish come with the morning – a great beaching, bodies black on sand. The ocean empties, a thousand dead and dying invertebrates, jungled tentacles and fine, fragile mem- branes blanketing the shore two miles in each direction. They are translucent, almost spectral, as though the sea has exorcised its ghosts. Drowned in air, they break apart and bleed their interiors. A saturation, leeching down into the earth. People claim they are poisonous – Sea Nettles, Lion’s Mane, Portuguese Man of War.
Cassandra After -3,5*
The issue, of course, was that she had been buried and now she wasn’t, although this could be said to be the case for a lot of things. I had once been a practising Catholic and now I wasn’t. Not unlike my religious conviction, her death had simply lapsed. I let her in and left her sitting on the sofa while I microwaved some Chinese rice and poured pineapple juice into a glass.
Salt slow – 4,5*
Afterwards, they brave their little boat’s tilting to sit together in the stern, compiling a list of the things they miss. There is a curious tinge of competition to it, a friendly tennis match for which both nonetheless keep silent score. I miss chocolate. I miss my hairdryer. Roast chicken. Newspapers. Paper money. Audiobooks. Fresh fruit. The sound of post arriving. Morning runs. Eating slowly. Cafetières. Frozen peas. The thought of going on holiday. Electric lights. Dogs. Wrapping paper. The way you used to look.
- Mantis
Julia Armfield já foi comparada a Angela Carter, a grande subversora dos contos de fadas, e apesar de eu, pessoalmente, a equiparar mais às grandes contistas argentinas da sua geração, Agustina Bazterrica e Samanta Schweblin, com o seu horror corporal e os seus ambientes inquietantes, foram os filmes de terror que deram origem a “Salt Slow”, um título inspirado em “Sob o Bosque de Leite” de Dylan Thomas: “É a noite avançando nas ruas, a procissão salgada do vento vagaroso e musical por Coronation Street e Cockle Row.”
Diz Armfield que trabalha a partir de imagens dando pouco valor ao enredo e, realmente, com o seu poder de descrição e frases bem torneadas, cria situações inusitadas recorrendo ao sobrenatural, ao realismo mágico e à inversão dos papéis tradicionais do horror, fazendo dos homens as vítimas ao serem confrontados com mulheres transgressoras, doseando bem o ridículo com o trágico. Tem havido muito hype em relação a “Our Wives Under the Sea” e o mesmo está a acontecer com o recém-publicado “Private Rites”, por isso, ao ler estes contos, que constituem a sua estreia como autora, compreendo e subscrevo todos os elogios.
Mantis- 4,5*
‘It’s hereditary,’ my Mother says, assessing her reflection in Mrs Weir’s make-up mirror after applying a different colour shadow to each eyelid. ‘Difficult puberties.’ ‘– what am I thinking of ?’ Mrs Weir burbles on, twisting the cap on a tube of cream like the wringing of a neck. ‘The poor people you see in the movies with the skin. You know? The ones with the bells.’ ‘You’re thinking of leprosy,’ I say (…) ‘You know what I do have is a lovely piece of kit that’s technically meant for stretch marks, but it might do as cover for you. Look here. The burn victims like this one, see.’
The Great Awake – 5*
It became so swiftly ordinary – not a thing to be longed for, but nothing whatsoever to be done. Like chicken pox, inevitable. People slept until their Sleeps stepped out of them, then they went on living awake. Shortly after our first encounter on the seventh floor, people in my building stopped sleeping at a rate of about one a night. Mine appeared early, an awkward guest to whom I first thought to offer tea or the newspaper, though I quickly discovered that Sleep was not a companion who wanted much entertaining.
The Collectables – 4,5*
We burned what we could of Simon Phillips in a pit at the end of the garden. Jenny held her hands over the flames – a bonfire of the final boyfriend: photographs with eyes scratched out, a note he had written on a napkin, the grisly confetti of toenail clippings she had pulled from the bathroom bin.
Formerly Feral – 4,5*
The wolf was named Helen, having been named after both Helen of Troy and St Helen of Constantinople, who reputedly discovered the true cross in Golgotha in AD 337. She was dust-coloured, slavered more or less constantly, which wasn’t attractive, and had the other unfortunate habits of defecating in the corner of the kitchen and gnawing on table legs. In the early days of his second marriage, my Father took great pleasure in citing all of the literary precedents for her presence in our lives, although he owned that from Romulus and Remus to Mowgli, the more usual setup involved wolves adopting humans, not the other way around.
Stop your women’s hears with wax – 3*
The band – their long hair, their flaring nostrils – reappearing to the kind of clamour Mona has only ever seen re- served for the Beatles; weeping female fans in strips of documentary footage, fingers reaching up into eye sockets, digging down with a violence made slippery by tears. It is not a reaction she is used to seeing for a girl band.
Granite -4*
Her friends are nurses, midwives, physical therapists. They discuss the issue with clinical focus over Chenin blanc and Twiglets. Men, they say, are not built to withstand the same internal pressures. You can see it in their hips, the way they breathe after running. A lack in anatomical endurance. From a purely physical perspective, it is hard to love a man without breaking him apart.
Smack – 3*
The jellyfish come with the morning – a great beaching, bodies black on sand. The ocean empties, a thousand dead and dying invertebrates, jungled tentacles and fine, fragile mem- branes blanketing the shore two miles in each direction. They are translucent, almost spectral, as though the sea has exorcised its ghosts. Drowned in air, they break apart and bleed their interiors. A saturation, leeching down into the earth. People claim they are poisonous – Sea Nettles, Lion’s Mane, Portuguese Man of War.
Cassandra After -3,5*
The issue, of course, was that she had been buried and now she wasn’t, although this could be said to be the case for a lot of things. I had once been a practising Catholic and now I wasn’t. Not unlike my religious conviction, her death had simply lapsed. I let her in and left her sitting on the sofa while I microwaved some Chinese rice and poured pineapple juice into a glass.
Salt slow – 4,5*
Afterwards, they brave their little boat’s tilting to sit together in the stern, compiling a list of the things they miss. There is a curious tinge of competition to it, a friendly tennis match for which both nonetheless keep silent score. I miss chocolate. I miss my hairdryer. Roast chicken. Newspapers. Paper money. Audiobooks. Fresh fruit. The sound of post arriving. Morning runs. Eating slowly. Cafetières. Frozen peas. The thought of going on holiday. Electric lights. Dogs. Wrapping paper. The way you used to look.
January 9, 2022
Lyrical, haunting, and disquieting - exactly how I like it
July 15, 2024
Mantis - 4⭐️ - wonderfully, uncomfortably weird!! I felt a subtle connection to the narrator, as I too have suffered with my skin over the years (not quite to this extent, mind!) I have often experienced feelings of being different, getting stared at, and wanting to peel it all off to reveal a better, more acceptable me.
The Great Awake - 4⭐️ - what was this?! Some kind of mass insomnia, a collective of people whose lives in the city are affected beyond their control, a pandemic of odd minds and busy schedules? Mental illnesses? I don’t really know for sure, however, I found myself thinking how relatable their experiences and behaviours were. My ‘Sleep’ can often be an unpredictable thing - a part of me that can rule my life if I allow to, or ironically, if I am too tired to fight it!
The Collectables - 5⭐️ - ’I’m ordering now — what does everyone want?'
‘Cheese and Tomato, please. Or Margerita if they have it.'
'Cheese and Tomato is Margherita. What about you?'
‘I don't know. What are you having?'
‘Ham and Pineapple.'
"That's no help.'
‘Well, what toppings do you feel like?'
‘The flesh of righteous men’.
‘I’ll get you a Meat Feast.'
Well that one was a lot of fun! I got strong Shirley Jackson vibes from these women. I found it deliciously macabre.
Formerly Feral - 5⭐️ a story with a wolf character? You wrote this especially for me, didn’t you Julia?! Put a wolf in your tale, authors, and I’ll howl my love for it at that full moon, loud and clear.
Stop your women’s ears with wax - 4⭐️ they’re touring, out on the road, the girl-band who knowingly create a chaotic feminist fan base where men are unwanted, driven away by the passions of ‘girls only’. Never underestimate the power of young women, especially those with silvered eyelids and brightly coloured hair. Their orange band T-shirts representing an indestructible sense of unity.
Granite - 5⭐️ a woman who’s the fussiest out of all her friends when it comes to men has finally found the right one. She hopes. Will she ruin it? Or will he?
’..it is hard to love a man without breaking him apart’.
Smack - 4⭐️ a ‘smack’ of jellyfish wash up on the shore whilst a woman knee-deep in disarray, shopping channel junk and deep thought considers her impending divorce. The two meld together in a strange, detached way, the descriptions are profound and thought provoking.
Cassandra After - 5⭐️’..she was a gentle sort of horror; the look of a girl removed from a coffin by a lunatic and placed upright to partake in a dinner party’.
The most lighthearted and humorous story in the collection, and quite possibly my favourite. The eccentric ‘dead Cassie’ story had me giggling with a kind of oddly contented pleasure.
’She shook her head again and a segment of earthworm dropped out of her ear’.
salt slow - 4⭐️ was this an oceanic tale of drastic world changes, human evolution, both physically and emotionally? I’m not sure I fully understood this one, but Armfield finished off her collection with what she does best; writing with heart and soul and the suggestion of deeper, metaphoric meaning.
Salt Slow is an extraordinary collection that I’ll be thinking about for quite some time. I thoroughly enjoyed buddy reading it with @Adriennelee, thank you for being my travelling companion on this strangely beautiful journey.
The Great Awake - 4⭐️ - what was this?! Some kind of mass insomnia, a collective of people whose lives in the city are affected beyond their control, a pandemic of odd minds and busy schedules? Mental illnesses? I don’t really know for sure, however, I found myself thinking how relatable their experiences and behaviours were. My ‘Sleep’ can often be an unpredictable thing - a part of me that can rule my life if I allow to, or ironically, if I am too tired to fight it!
The Collectables - 5⭐️ - ’I’m ordering now — what does everyone want?'
‘Cheese and Tomato, please. Or Margerita if they have it.'
'Cheese and Tomato is Margherita. What about you?'
‘I don't know. What are you having?'
‘Ham and Pineapple.'
"That's no help.'
‘Well, what toppings do you feel like?'
‘The flesh of righteous men’.
‘I’ll get you a Meat Feast.'
Well that one was a lot of fun! I got strong Shirley Jackson vibes from these women. I found it deliciously macabre.
Formerly Feral - 5⭐️ a story with a wolf character? You wrote this especially for me, didn’t you Julia?! Put a wolf in your tale, authors, and I’ll howl my love for it at that full moon, loud and clear.
Stop your women’s ears with wax - 4⭐️ they’re touring, out on the road, the girl-band who knowingly create a chaotic feminist fan base where men are unwanted, driven away by the passions of ‘girls only’. Never underestimate the power of young women, especially those with silvered eyelids and brightly coloured hair. Their orange band T-shirts representing an indestructible sense of unity.
Granite - 5⭐️ a woman who’s the fussiest out of all her friends when it comes to men has finally found the right one. She hopes. Will she ruin it? Or will he?
’..it is hard to love a man without breaking him apart’.
Smack - 4⭐️ a ‘smack’ of jellyfish wash up on the shore whilst a woman knee-deep in disarray, shopping channel junk and deep thought considers her impending divorce. The two meld together in a strange, detached way, the descriptions are profound and thought provoking.
Cassandra After - 5⭐️’..she was a gentle sort of horror; the look of a girl removed from a coffin by a lunatic and placed upright to partake in a dinner party’.
The most lighthearted and humorous story in the collection, and quite possibly my favourite. The eccentric ‘dead Cassie’ story had me giggling with a kind of oddly contented pleasure.
’She shook her head again and a segment of earthworm dropped out of her ear’.
salt slow - 4⭐️ was this an oceanic tale of drastic world changes, human evolution, both physically and emotionally? I’m not sure I fully understood this one, but Armfield finished off her collection with what she does best; writing with heart and soul and the suggestion of deeper, metaphoric meaning.
Salt Slow is an extraordinary collection that I’ll be thinking about for quite some time. I thoroughly enjoyed buddy reading it with @Adriennelee, thank you for being my travelling companion on this strangely beautiful journey.
January 8, 2025
A collection of queer magical realism horror rooted in classics. Obviously I loved this.
The stories play on language in a very bard-like way; a catholic schoolgirl begins to shed pieces of herself, a heartbroken grad student is convinced the perfect man is an amalgamation of parts, in a dystopian flooded future sea creatures grow to unfathomable sizes as does a woman’s stomach. It explores transformation and womanhood in a haunting and visceral way. I got something out of every single story.
I will say, however, that I sometimes felt the author's inexperience in the explicit explanantion of sources. There were a few times when mythological names were dropped and it was a bit like... no we got it... you’re referencing one of the most famous classical tales... you don't need to then state what it is. It added a very unappealing element of insecurity, as it always does when a writer is aware of and doubts whether their concept will come across as intended.
Trust me girl! Subtlety is sexy! Don't underestimate me! It really is my pet peeve, so perhaps this will not be so bothersome to others.
All in all I was excited by this collection, I'd finish a story and couldn’t wait to tell my friends about it which is always a delightful impulse. Our Wives Under the Sea next >:)
The stories play on language in a very bard-like way; a catholic schoolgirl begins to shed pieces of herself, a heartbroken grad student is convinced the perfect man is an amalgamation of parts, in a dystopian flooded future sea creatures grow to unfathomable sizes as does a woman’s stomach. It explores transformation and womanhood in a haunting and visceral way. I got something out of every single story.
I will say, however, that I sometimes felt the author's inexperience in the explicit explanantion of sources. There were a few times when mythological names were dropped and it was a bit like... no we got it... you’re referencing one of the most famous classical tales... you don't need to then state what it is. It added a very unappealing element of insecurity, as it always does when a writer is aware of and doubts whether their concept will come across as intended.
Trust me girl! Subtlety is sexy! Don't underestimate me! It really is my pet peeve, so perhaps this will not be so bothersome to others.
All in all I was excited by this collection, I'd finish a story and couldn’t wait to tell my friends about it which is always a delightful impulse. Our Wives Under the Sea next >:)
February 13, 2021
well THIS is a stunner
February 12, 2023
"Salt Slow" by Julia Armfield (I think best known for Our Wives Under the Sea) is a haunting and disturbing collection of short stories. The melancholy lingered with me long after I finished it.
Armfield's writing style is captivating and a standout feature of this book, making it a truly unique and memorable reading experience. I was thoroughly impressed.
Armfield's writing style is captivating and a standout feature of this book, making it a truly unique and memorable reading experience. I was thoroughly impressed.
July 14, 2024
I first encountered Julia Armfield last year when I read Our Wives Under the Sea, and I loved that book but this collection wasn't really on my radar until I decided to request it on a whim from my library. I'm certainly glad I did. Armfield has me completely won over with her stunning, lyrical writing. Except for one story in this book, all were pretty consistently excellent.
Of course, in any collection, the reader will have their personal favorites. Right now, I'd have to point to the stories "Formerly Feral" which weaves a variety of fairy tale tropes into an innovative and charming story about a teenage girl and her unusual new sister, and "Smack," an evocative and ethereal story about a woman going through a divorce who holes herself up in an emptying house by the sea, where jellyfish have begun to beach themselves en masse in the sand. My ratings for all the stories are:
Mantis - 5 ⭐
The Great Awake - 4.5 ⭐
The Collectibles - 5 ⭐
Formerly Feral - 5 ⭐
Stop Your Women's Ears With Wax - 3 ⭐
Granite - 4 ⭐
Smack - 5 ⭐
Cassandra After - 5 ⭐
Salt Slow - 5 ⭐
I ordered Armfield's latest novel immediately after reading the first three stories in one night. She is definitely a new favorite, auto-buy author for me. I'll have to track down a copy of Salt Slow for my personal library so I can revisit these haunting and beautiful stories.
Thanks to @Lisa - OwlBeSatReading for suggesting a buddy read of this book!
Of course, in any collection, the reader will have their personal favorites. Right now, I'd have to point to the stories "Formerly Feral" which weaves a variety of fairy tale tropes into an innovative and charming story about a teenage girl and her unusual new sister, and "Smack," an evocative and ethereal story about a woman going through a divorce who holes herself up in an emptying house by the sea, where jellyfish have begun to beach themselves en masse in the sand. My ratings for all the stories are:
Mantis - 5 ⭐
The Great Awake - 4.5 ⭐
The Collectibles - 5 ⭐
Formerly Feral - 5 ⭐
Stop Your Women's Ears With Wax - 3 ⭐
Granite - 4 ⭐
Smack - 5 ⭐
Cassandra After - 5 ⭐
Salt Slow - 5 ⭐
I ordered Armfield's latest novel immediately after reading the first three stories in one night. She is definitely a new favorite, auto-buy author for me. I'll have to track down a copy of Salt Slow for my personal library so I can revisit these haunting and beautiful stories.
Thanks to @Lisa - OwlBeSatReading for suggesting a buddy read of this book!
August 27, 2020
Before I even think about the words here, can we please just applaud the incredible book cover designs that we keep being gifted with?! This book is one of the loveliest looking objects I've picked up in a while, and it's far from being alone in a veritable sea of truly excellent eye-candy.
Even better: it's a solidly good read. I adored books like Kirsty Logan's The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales, and Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body and Other Parties, and Salt Slow would make an excellent shelf-companion for them both. The title is one of my favourite I've ever come across (maybe I should make a "favourite titles" shelf? hmmm...), and the 3 - 3.5 star rating is very definitely not a suggestion that this isn't worth reading. Please, in fact, do go out (or - errr, maybe not out out right now - perhaps to your nearest online library system/independent bookstore website and be willing to wait in support of local business) and find a copy to read, especially if you also enjoy the works of Machado and Logan et al. Armfield's stories have serious bite to them, and I especially loved the exquisitely bizarre, grimy Formerly Feral, my favourite of the entire collection. There's a viscerality to it all that will either seriously appeal to or turn off readers, and I'm probably in the former camp, though I occasionally found it a little overbalanced.
So why not rate it more highly? It just felt like something fell a little flat. Like the punchline hit a beat too soon, or too late. This is a debut collection though, and a very good one at that - I seriously look forward to a second, third, other future offering.
Even better: it's a solidly good read. I adored books like Kirsty Logan's The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales, and Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body and Other Parties, and Salt Slow would make an excellent shelf-companion for them both. The title is one of my favourite I've ever come across (maybe I should make a "favourite titles" shelf? hmmm...), and the 3 - 3.5 star rating is very definitely not a suggestion that this isn't worth reading. Please, in fact, do go out (or - errr, maybe not out out right now - perhaps to your nearest online library system/independent bookstore website and be willing to wait in support of local business) and find a copy to read, especially if you also enjoy the works of Machado and Logan et al. Armfield's stories have serious bite to them, and I especially loved the exquisitely bizarre, grimy Formerly Feral, my favourite of the entire collection. There's a viscerality to it all that will either seriously appeal to or turn off readers, and I'm probably in the former camp, though I occasionally found it a little overbalanced.
So why not rate it more highly? It just felt like something fell a little flat. Like the punchline hit a beat too soon, or too late. This is a debut collection though, and a very good one at that - I seriously look forward to a second, third, other future offering.
February 9, 2020
This was a weird book. Interesting on some levels but overall pretty weird. Each story had its own take on weirdness. There’s not much more I can say.
June 10, 2025
I'm very sure now that Julia could write anything and I'd drool on command. She is my pavlov. And I am just a feral biotch for her words.
February 3, 2020
This managed to gross me out in so many different yet very quiet ways, so of course I really appreciated it.
Salt Slow is a collection about unruly women. Women who defy the rules of reality, who are messy and ugly and feral, or turn so; women who are violent, long for the worst, howl at the moon.
In a society in which even a hint of these things in a woman is met with retaliation, it's really refreshing to read stories that bend reality to allow us to be. This book isn't afraid of gore, of going to dark places, and Julia Armfield's prose certainly has teeth - both in the sense that this book will happily sink them in you and in the sense that almost every single story contains multiple occurrences of the word "teeth". (why?)
Salt Slow has the kind of attention to detail that makes magical realism and contemporary fantasy truly magical for me - it cares about the mundane and the small, finds the shine and the rot in it. Most of its power comes from exploring speculative paths based on very real, very unremarkable events, turning an average day into an experience of quiet horror.
These stories all have the kind of conclusions that made me think, which I appreciate immensely. I know this will stay with me, as almost every single story did (interestingly, all of them but the one that gives the title to the book).
I often ended the stories feeling uneasy, and even more often, confused. I had to work to make them make sense, or to find a sense - sometimes the sense is a condensation of a story and your own experiences - and I will never turn down a puzzle, so this was fun as well.
As for what it talks about apart from the unifying thread, there are a lot of themes discussed here that are personal to me - among all, the experience of being raised as a Catholic woman when you're queer. Cassandra After is specifically about that, about how the shame that is written upon us tears us away from our loved ones and our own bodies, as it's probably designed to do; and Mantis is about going through puberty while in Catholic school (...but explored in a way that would definitely appeal to Wilder Girls fans), and while my experiences with that kind of place were toxic for other reasons, all of this is closer to me than I'd like.
Other remarkable stories were Stop your women's ears with wax, a response to the way girl bands and their fans are dismissed - bright, frenetic, beautiful, and wonderfully queer. The Great Awake, another f/f story and again one of my favorites, spoke of the sleepless nature of cities, and how the only way we have to survive them is forging new connections.
Other stories stood out for their imagery to me: Formerly Feral is probably the best example of this, again a story of puberty-as-metamorphosis involving wolves and some of the most unforgettable symbolism I've seen in a long while.
Individual ratings:
Mantis - 4 stars
The Great Awake - 5 stars
The Collectables - 3.5 stars
Formerly Feral - 4 stars
Stop your women's ears with wax - 5 stars
Granite - 4 stars
Smack - 3 stars
Cassandra After - 5 stars
Salt Slow - 2 stars
Average: 3,94 - but, as usual, an anthology is more than a sum of its parts.
Salt Slow is a collection about unruly women. Women who defy the rules of reality, who are messy and ugly and feral, or turn so; women who are violent, long for the worst, howl at the moon.
In a society in which even a hint of these things in a woman is met with retaliation, it's really refreshing to read stories that bend reality to allow us to be. This book isn't afraid of gore, of going to dark places, and Julia Armfield's prose certainly has teeth - both in the sense that this book will happily sink them in you and in the sense that almost every single story contains multiple occurrences of the word "teeth". (why?)
Salt Slow has the kind of attention to detail that makes magical realism and contemporary fantasy truly magical for me - it cares about the mundane and the small, finds the shine and the rot in it. Most of its power comes from exploring speculative paths based on very real, very unremarkable events, turning an average day into an experience of quiet horror.
These stories all have the kind of conclusions that made me think, which I appreciate immensely. I know this will stay with me, as almost every single story did (interestingly, all of them but the one that gives the title to the book).
I often ended the stories feeling uneasy, and even more often, confused. I had to work to make them make sense, or to find a sense - sometimes the sense is a condensation of a story and your own experiences - and I will never turn down a puzzle, so this was fun as well.
As for what it talks about apart from the unifying thread, there are a lot of themes discussed here that are personal to me - among all, the experience of being raised as a Catholic woman when you're queer. Cassandra After is specifically about that, about how the shame that is written upon us tears us away from our loved ones and our own bodies, as it's probably designed to do; and Mantis is about going through puberty while in Catholic school (...but explored in a way that would definitely appeal to Wilder Girls fans), and while my experiences with that kind of place were toxic for other reasons, all of this is closer to me than I'd like.
Other remarkable stories were Stop your women's ears with wax, a response to the way girl bands and their fans are dismissed - bright, frenetic, beautiful, and wonderfully queer. The Great Awake, another f/f story and again one of my favorites, spoke of the sleepless nature of cities, and how the only way we have to survive them is forging new connections.
Other stories stood out for their imagery to me: Formerly Feral is probably the best example of this, again a story of puberty-as-metamorphosis involving wolves and some of the most unforgettable symbolism I've seen in a long while.
Individual ratings:
Mantis - 4 stars
The Great Awake - 5 stars
The Collectables - 3.5 stars
Formerly Feral - 4 stars
Stop your women's ears with wax - 5 stars
Granite - 4 stars
Smack - 3 stars
Cassandra After - 5 stars
Salt Slow - 2 stars
Average: 3,94 - but, as usual, an anthology is more than a sum of its parts.
November 21, 2019
These nine short stories are steeped in myth and magic, but often have a realistic shell. Only gradually do the fantastical or dystopian elements emerge, with the final paragraph delivering a delicious surprise. For instance, the narrator of “Mantis” attends a Catholic girls’ school and is caught up in a typical cycle of self-loathing and obsessing over boys. It’s only at the very end that we realize her extreme skin condition is actually a metamorphosis that enables her to protect herself. The settings are split between the city and the seaside; the perspective is divided almost perfectly down the middle between the first and third person. The body is a site of transformation, or a source of grotesque relics, as in “The Collectables,” in which a PhD student starts amassing body parts she could only have acquired via grave-robbing.
Two favorites for me were “Formerly Feral,” in which a 13-year-old girl acquires a wolf as a stepsister and increasingly starts to resemble her; and the final, title story, a post-apocalyptic one in which a man and a pregnant woman are alone in a fishing boat, floating above a drowned world and living as if outside of time. This one is really rather terrifying. I also liked “Cassandra After,” in which a dead girlfriend comes back – it reminded me of Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride, which I’m currently reading for #MARM. “Stop Your Women’s Ears with Wax,” about a girl group experiencing Beatles-level fandom on a tour of the UK, felt like the odd one out to me in this collection.
Armfield’s prose is punchy, with invented verbs and condensed descriptions that just plain work: “Jenny had taken to poltergeisting round the house”; “skin like fork-clawed cottage cheese,” “the lobster shells gleam a slick vermilion” and “The sky is gory with stars.” There’s no shortage of feminist fantasy stories out there nowadays – Aimee Bender, Kelly Link, Carmen Maria Machado and Karen Russell are just a few others working in this vein – but the writing in Salt Slow really grabbed me even when the plots didn’t. I’ll be following Armfield’s career with interest.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Two favorites for me were “Formerly Feral,” in which a 13-year-old girl acquires a wolf as a stepsister and increasingly starts to resemble her; and the final, title story, a post-apocalyptic one in which a man and a pregnant woman are alone in a fishing boat, floating above a drowned world and living as if outside of time. This one is really rather terrifying. I also liked “Cassandra After,” in which a dead girlfriend comes back – it reminded me of Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride, which I’m currently reading for #MARM. “Stop Your Women’s Ears with Wax,” about a girl group experiencing Beatles-level fandom on a tour of the UK, felt like the odd one out to me in this collection.
Armfield’s prose is punchy, with invented verbs and condensed descriptions that just plain work: “Jenny had taken to poltergeisting round the house”; “skin like fork-clawed cottage cheese,” “the lobster shells gleam a slick vermilion” and “The sky is gory with stars.” There’s no shortage of feminist fantasy stories out there nowadays – Aimee Bender, Kelly Link, Carmen Maria Machado and Karen Russell are just a few others working in this vein – but the writing in Salt Slow really grabbed me even when the plots didn’t. I’ll be following Armfield’s career with interest.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
July 26, 2019
Thank you SO MUCH @picadorbooks for gifting me what had become one of my top books of the year and an all time favourite short story collection! If the perfect short story collection exists, then it is Salt Slow by Julia Armfield, and I’m planning on writing her a letter to ask her to write me a short story every day so I never run out of ones to read - is that selfish?
.
I was in love from the first story, a raw and painful portrayal of the relationship between young girls and their bodies, the competitiveness that they instinctively feel while going through puberty, which then takes a sinister turn, setting the tone for the rest of the stories.
.
I wouldn’t say there is a single weak story within this collection. The Great Awake, an eerie yet tender story where people’s ‘Sleeps’ have left their bodies and now follow them around like pets, Collectables, delightfully gruesome and sharp, Salt Slow, a haunting end-of-the-world story with all things tentacles beneath the sea, Cassandra After, a woman coming to terms with her sexuality, made more difficult when her girlfriend dies then comes back. I’m not sure I could pick a favourite - maybe Formerly Feral?! But all were truly excellent, Armfield’s imagination is a thing of many creepy wonders.
.
The extraordinary and ghoulish is told in a matter of fact way, lending a ring of authenticity which is in itself is unsettling. Within the stories she explores gender roles, sexuality, societal pressures, growing up, falling in love, but all with that magical realism touch that takes it to the next level and leaves you wondering what’s simmering beneath the skin...
.
If you love dark, viscous, oozing, visceral stories then you must have Armfield on your radar! I will be waiting with bated breath for more by her!
.
I was in love from the first story, a raw and painful portrayal of the relationship between young girls and their bodies, the competitiveness that they instinctively feel while going through puberty, which then takes a sinister turn, setting the tone for the rest of the stories.
.
I wouldn’t say there is a single weak story within this collection. The Great Awake, an eerie yet tender story where people’s ‘Sleeps’ have left their bodies and now follow them around like pets, Collectables, delightfully gruesome and sharp, Salt Slow, a haunting end-of-the-world story with all things tentacles beneath the sea, Cassandra After, a woman coming to terms with her sexuality, made more difficult when her girlfriend dies then comes back. I’m not sure I could pick a favourite - maybe Formerly Feral?! But all were truly excellent, Armfield’s imagination is a thing of many creepy wonders.
.
The extraordinary and ghoulish is told in a matter of fact way, lending a ring of authenticity which is in itself is unsettling. Within the stories she explores gender roles, sexuality, societal pressures, growing up, falling in love, but all with that magical realism touch that takes it to the next level and leaves you wondering what’s simmering beneath the skin...
.
If you love dark, viscous, oozing, visceral stories then you must have Armfield on your radar! I will be waiting with bated breath for more by her!
January 25, 2024
2.5 ⭐️
I loved two of the short stories in this collection: Mantis & The Great Awake.
I found myself speeding through the other ones, even skipping a couple entirely because they didn’t keep my interest.
I loved two of the short stories in this collection: Mantis & The Great Awake.
I found myself speeding through the other ones, even skipping a couple entirely because they didn’t keep my interest.
May 31, 2024
”Come se il mio corpo andasse in pezzi o qualcosa cercasse di uscirne.”
La scenografia del grottesco dove corpi si smembrano, perdono la forma, mutando in altro.
Riti di passaggio, elaborazione del lutto.
Grida di rabbia, dolore, ribellione
Nove racconti: inconsueti, spiazzanti, deliranti.
Mantide ⭐⭐⭐
un corpo che muta perdendo la pelle come un serpente e come una mantide, per sopravvivere, si nutre dell’Uomo..
La Grande Veglia ⭐⭐⭐
”Avevo ventisette anni quando il mio Sonno uscì da me come un passeggero che scende dal vagone di un treno, si guardò intorno in camera mia per qualche secondo e si sedette sulla sedia accanto al letto.”
Pezzi da collezione ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Frankestein in chiave moderna e femminista.
“Pensa che uomo potremmo avere se prendessimo solo i pezzi migliori,”
Non più selvatico ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Un divorzio, due sorelle separate ed una lupacchiotta…
Tappa le orecchie delle tue donne con la cera ⭐⭐⭐
Fan/Fanatiche assumono mostruose forme..
Granito ⭐⭐⭐⭐
”Una specie di disgustosa perversione, l’amore.”
Schiaffo ⭐⭐⭐⭐
”Lo aveva conosciuto allora, aveva visto la sua pelle di lupo mannaro sotto la superficie. “
Cassandra dopo ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Dolori della morte e fantasmi che aiutano a superare la separazione..
Salmastro e lento ⭐⭐
”Da qualche parte sui fianchi, un dolore si sprigiona, ma è solo il fantasma di un dolore, l’ombra di una cosa passata.”
La scenografia del grottesco dove corpi si smembrano, perdono la forma, mutando in altro.
Riti di passaggio, elaborazione del lutto.
Grida di rabbia, dolore, ribellione
Nove racconti: inconsueti, spiazzanti, deliranti.
Mantide ⭐⭐⭐
un corpo che muta perdendo la pelle come un serpente e come una mantide, per sopravvivere, si nutre dell’Uomo..
La Grande Veglia ⭐⭐⭐
”Avevo ventisette anni quando il mio Sonno uscì da me come un passeggero che scende dal vagone di un treno, si guardò intorno in camera mia per qualche secondo e si sedette sulla sedia accanto al letto.”
Pezzi da collezione ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Frankestein in chiave moderna e femminista.
“Pensa che uomo potremmo avere se prendessimo solo i pezzi migliori,”
Non più selvatico ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Un divorzio, due sorelle separate ed una lupacchiotta…
Tappa le orecchie delle tue donne con la cera ⭐⭐⭐
Fan/Fanatiche assumono mostruose forme..
Granito ⭐⭐⭐⭐
”Una specie di disgustosa perversione, l’amore.”
Schiaffo ⭐⭐⭐⭐
”Lo aveva conosciuto allora, aveva visto la sua pelle di lupo mannaro sotto la superficie. “
Cassandra dopo ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Dolori della morte e fantasmi che aiutano a superare la separazione..
Salmastro e lento ⭐⭐
”Da qualche parte sui fianchi, un dolore si sprigiona, ma è solo il fantasma di un dolore, l’ombra di una cosa passata.”
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