Overview

An unsettling, hypnotic descent into the visceral heart of ""mommy horror,"" Afterbirth is a story of fractured sisterhood, aching hunger, and irrevocable transformation--reverberating with the echoes of classic horror cinema. In the wake of a fraught and ill-omened romance, Brooke arrives in Vancouver to care for her sister Izzy, who is preparing to undergo reproductive surgery. But Izzy's rapidly decaying apartment building, its hallways stalked by an ominous figure known only as Medusa, offers little of the refuge the sisters need. Seeking solace in the horror movies her ex-girlfriend loved, Brooke soon finds traces of horror bleeding from the screen into their lives. Old wounds reopen and new tensions surface. When Brooke begins to exhibit strange symptoms of her own, the line between self and sister blurs, and their concern for each other twists into a tangled obsession. Eerie, threaded with yearning, and startlingly original, Emma Cleary's haunting literary debut explores loneliness, motherhood, and the body's threatened autonomy. The novel blooms with the dark desires we suppress or surrender to--until only one question remains: who, or what, will survive when all unravels?

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9780063420946

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Reviews

""Afterbirth is a lyrical, surreal and deeply profound exploration of the relationship between women and their reproductive bodies. At once horrific and beautiful, the bodies of the women in Cleary's world transgress their physical boundaries and begin to impregnate one another with monsters. The empathy and connection between women and sisters are revealed to be at once intimate and violent. Cleary's debut is a metaphysical triumph that shines a light on the supernatural forces that dwell in the deepest recesses of women's bodies. Utterly unique, experimental and, simultaneously, a page turner with the sly creeping pace of a horror film."" - Heather O'Neill, author of The Lonely Hearts Hotel and The Capital of Dreams

""Deeply Unsettling, a masterpiece of literary horror."" -- Julia Armfield, author of Private Rights and Our Wives Under the Sea

Author Information

Emma Cleary is a writer and editor from Liverpool, now living in Vancouver. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in Best British Short Stories, James Baldwin Review, and Canadian Literature, among other publications. She holds a PhD in literature, and an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia. She is editor-in-chief of Geist magazine.

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