Wife Shaped Bodies

Set in a postapocalyptic compound founded by a group of male mycologists whose idealistic dream of using fungi to detoxify the Earth has twisted into something dark, Cranehill’s lyrical and disquieting debut combines myth, science, and gorgeously rendered body horror. The men’s original wives, the Foremothers, have been taken over by a fungal plague, but the men use their spores to create new women with their faces as replacements. These fungi-human hybrids are expected to shave off the fungal growths every morning to maintain their wife-shaped bodies. They’re also forbidden from touching one another lest the plague spread or venturing into the toxic woods surrounding the compound. Heroine Nicole, raised to two years old (the age when women marry) in strict isolation, is married off to 66-year-old Silas the day her mother dies and is expected to fill the hole left by Pamela, his first wife, despite feeling trapped and repulsed by him. Meanwhile, she develops an erotic fixation on the rebellious Teaghan, who refuses to shave her mushrooms, touches Nicole freely, and encourages her to question all she’s been taught. Cranehill’s prose is stunning, rendering Nicole’s physical and emotional landscape—and the bizarre topography of her skin—lush, verdant, and strange. Frequent dream sequences add to the slippery, surreal feeling of the plot. Fans of feminist horror won’t want to miss this. (Apr.)