Hellions
Julia Elliott. Tin House, $17.95 trade paper (256p) ISBN 978-1-9631-0806-4
A stultifying rural South Carolina provides the backdrop for these intoxicating, fantasy-tinged stories from Elliott (The Wilds). Several entries follow children languishing during a muggy summer. In the title story, 12-year-old Butter shows a visiting cousin, Alex, her pet alligator, then takes Alex to the swamp to see the mysterious keening Swamp Ape. The teenagers who narrate “The Maiden” spend their long summer days bouncing on a trampoline. They become transfixed by a wimpy girl they previously nicknamed Cujo for her gangly looks, after she transforms into a beautiful and agile gymnast on their trampoline: “Sick and tired of our shit town... The Maiden had given us a glimpse of otherworldly possibilities.” A college student in “Erl King” falls for an aging professor who writes poetry in the forest and transforms into a half stag, half human at night. Elliott’s fairy tale themes are best when they inform her characters’ longing, as in “Arcadia Lakes,” when 16-year-old Fern obsesses over a mysterious life-form growing in the mud of her neighborhood’s dried-up lake. In “The Grickleware,” Sylvia eats a mysterious egg, which leads to creatures—including her ex-boyfriend—haunting her cabin. Elliott’s rich and magical landscape will pull readers in. Agent: Madeline Ticknor, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Apr.)
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Reviewed on: 01/14/2025
Genre: Fiction