Director Bennet oversees an underground laboratory somewhere near some quiet mountain town. There is no mention of a shotgun, but the wedding ends with a disastrous wedding night that leaves the groom all over the room and Adiria missing her hands.Īdira’s point of view is told through emotional, dreamlike imagery, whereas when we meet the second protagonist, Director Bennet, the prose goes more traditional, less surreal. The reader is quick to see just how overbearing the Dragon is when after finding her daughter, not yet a high school senior, in the midst of either coitus or a rape in her trailer’s living room, the Dragon quickly starts planning the wedding. Dealing with an overbearing mother, referred to her as the Dragon, Adura is attempting to figure out herself and her body, her sexual identity, as most teenagers tend to do.

The Wingspan of Severed Hands by Joanna Koch takes from the past to bring us the future of cosmic horror.Īdira is a young girl who, as the synopsis tells us, is fighting for her personal autonomy. Kingfisher have all shown, they can be an effective approach. By taking up the fictional creations that influenced us, we’re able to make our own mark on the worlds that inspired us, and as recent books such as The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle, Ring Shout by P.

A sort of high-brow fan fiction, you could say, but it’s nothing new in the world of horror. A growing trend in horror fiction of late, one I have greatly enjoyed, is to approach and adjust, possibly correct, the horror of the past by actively playing in the mythos created by the writers of the past.

The twisted ones kingfisher summary