 Rosalie Parker has long been known as one half of the Tartarus Press and editor of their terrific Strange Tales anthology series, which recently celebrated its 30th birthday. However, in the past decade Parker has also built up a reputation as an author of supernatural fiction, culminating in her most recent collection Through The Storm. The title is apt as the best stories here tend to be set among the elemental forces of nature. The Yorkshire moors and their pitfalls are eerily evoked to good effect in ‘The Moor’, which in atmosphere reminded me a bit of Ann Halam’s Ally Ally Aster. ‘Village Life’, the heart-breaking ‘Cow City’ and the softly redemptive ‘Reality TV’ all benefit from keen but sympathetic observations of modern-day rural Britain. My favourite moorland story is definitely ‘Touchstone’, a skilful blend of an antiquarian ghost story (full of interesting details about standing stones) and a persuasive character study of a woman who, depending on how you look at it, is either losing her way in life or very much finding it. Parker is a dab hand at describing the natural world – none of the tales above would work otherwise - and her sea stories are of particularly high quality in this respect. The title tale is a proper flight of fantasy, one of those glittering fugues that make the wonderful seem within reach. ‘Chimera’, about a hard-up photographer on the hunt for a marine cryptid, was the stand-out story in the recent sea horror anthology Great British Horror 3: For Those In Peril, effortlessly splicing the raptures and terrors of the vasty deep with a painfully accurate portrayal of life – if you can call it life – in poverty-stricken Britain. In fact, social commentary is one of the things Parker does very well. She is unafraid to look the present in the face and shine a light on the sections of society that have been the worst hit by the UK’s raging, decade-long war on poor people. ‘Fever’ deals with homelessness as a liminal state that becomes superimposed with another more fantastical type of border, and ‘The Group’ is a more full-throated assault on the unbridled thanatopolitics embraced by the British government when it comes to dealing with the disabled and long-term sick. The story stars the members of a support group for people with severe mental illnesses and concerns what they get up to on the days out that are organized for them by an increasingly grudging local health authority. Despite the sombre theme there’s a lot of humour in it and the horror is leavened with a swirl of magical realism. And fans of Les Murray’s classic disability poem ‘Dog Fox Field’ will be glad to know that there is even a cameo from an actual fox! Parker’s grasp of current issues is quite surprising when you consider that most of her nearest literary neighbours tend to hail from mainstream literary fiction several decades old. Her work is reminiscent of a number of feminist writers from the 70s and 80 such as Fay Weldon and Alison Lurie, and you can definitely imagine some of the more light-hearted pieces being turned into one of those old Woman’s Hour plays. However, within the speculative fiction genre her work can be compared to writers of ‘quiet’ sci-fi like Brian Aldiss and supernatural authors like Tina Rath. Most of the stories are short with a light touch, and many have familiar, domestic settings, but things are rarely allowed to get too cosy thanks to frequent flashes of irony and wit that are no less effective for being couched in a gentle, conversational style. Parker’s fiction acts as a kind of literary sorbet, refreshing and full of zing without weighing down the stomach, although the reader should resist the temptation to bolt too much at once, as many of these stories are best when savoured slowly.  “Parker shows considerable skill at creating dramatic tension and moods of menace that will appeal to fans ofsubtly told tales of the macabre.” Ghosts, shamans, aliens, angels and the weirdness of life all make their appearance in this new collection of Rosalie Parker’s strange tales. Her stories depict subtly shifting realities, and celebrate the fluidity of the barrier between the uncanny and the everyday. These twenty-five stories vary from contes to longer pieces, and explore the traditions of the weird tale in fresh and original ways. AUTHOR BIO Rosalie Parker’s previous collections of short stories are The Old Knowledge, Damage and Sparks from the Fire. ‘In the Garden’ was selected for Best New Horror #21, and ‘Random Flight’ for Best British Horror 2015. She runs the independent UK publisher Tartarus Press with R.B. Russell, and lives in Coverdale, North Yorkshire.   Comments are closed.
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