Longlisted for the 2022 Edge Hill Prize.
Human Terrain. The Army acknowledges, through the lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq, that human geography is as important as any satellite map.
Human Terrain deals with female voices and working-class existences, ordinary lives transformed by loss and love. There’s the mother working as cutman for her daughter in the boxing ring; the family who find themselves abandoned at the seaside; the gardener digging for love among the grass cuttings and weeds. Characters standing in a classroom, drinking in a pub, working the fryer in a fish and chip shop, or finding love in an ice warehouse, they all inhabit the collection. Stories full of dark humour and deep tenderness that depict the characters’ struggles to understand their place in the world.
Praise for Human Terrain
In Emily Bullock’s mystical collection, loss is evident. Life, thwarted dreams, family and its bonding and breaking, addictions, sins, despair.
These are stories told through beautiful, emotional writing that veers between the mystical and the ordinary, the lyrical and the raw, the profane and the infinite.
This is definitely one of the finest collections of the year and I can’t wait to explore Emily Bullock’s work.
—Amalia Gkavea, The Opinionated Reader
Here is a writer who has harnessed, embraced and extended the human spirit in multitude ways, harnessing each story’s energy and going where it might take her.
Diversity and adversity run through this collection like welcome silver threads. We witness self destruction and self awareness in equal measure, but we are invited to view them through a three dimensional, empathetic lens.
This is a sparkling collection with humanity at it’s heart. Beautifully balanced and constructed, it is a perfect short story collection.
—Bookbound
Praise for Emily Bullock
Startlingly original and poetic – Bullock combines horror and brutality with unexpected moments of tenderness.
—The Observer, on Inside the Beautiful Inside
The backdrop of postwar London is splendidly done – all crusted soot and swirling fog – and the boxing scenes have a terrific vigour and excitement.
—The Times, on The Longest Fight
Emily Bullock’s debut, The Longest Fight, [is] a fine addition to the canon of boxing literature… And Bullock too, is alert to boxing’s nobility, as well as its barbarity, in this grittily impressive first novel.
—Independent on Sunday, on The Longest Fight
Emily Bullock won the Bristol Short Story Prize with her story ‘My Girl’, which was also broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her short stories have been included in collections such as Aesthetica Creative Writing Anthology 2019, A Short Affair (Scribner, 2018), and Bath Short Story Prize Anthology 2014. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and completed her PhD at the Open University, where she is a Staff Tutor in Creative Writing. Her debut novel, The Longest Fight, was shortlisted for the Cross Sports Book Awards, and listed in The Independent’s Paperbacks of the Year. Her second novel, Inside the Beautiful Inside, was published in September 2020.
Marilyn Lindsey (verified owner) –
This is a stunning collection of beautifully written, exceptionally well observed stories. Emily makes you feel the whole gamut of emotions experienced by her characters who range from teenagers through to the elderly with her exceptional insight and ability to draw you in to their wide-ranging experiences. I highly recommend this varied and insightful collection of stories by a very talented author.
Amalia Gkavea (verified owner) –
“On the 18th of December 1989, when waves smashed Blackpool pier and leaves whipped against windows, she began to fight. In the upstairs bathroom, on a blue fish and smiling dolphin beach towel, the ambulance delayed under a falling oak, my girl was born. She came out screaming: fists balled, facered, breathing hard. No one but me to hear her.”
In Emily Bullock’s mystical collection, loss is evident. Life, thwarted dreams, family and its bonding and breaking, addictions, sins, despair.
Τhere are stories told through beautiful, emotional writing that veers between the mystical and the ordinary, the lyrical and the raw, the profane and the infinite.
My Girl: In a powerful story, a mother watches her daughter fighting in the gym while her mind goes back to her ordeal in the hands of an abusive, monstrous husband.
Tombstoning: A woman remembers her old classmate, a troubled soul and a harsh childhood.
“You noticed that everything looked different at night, dipped in blue: the hawthorn bush next door like a giant bony hand, fingers spread open in defence; the RAF landing lights at the end of the field like red Chinese lanterns blown off course. The sheep were stone still, illuminated by moonlight; no streetlamps that far
out of the village.”
Zoom:A dark, sinister story of violence and lost innocence. Very cryptic and extremely mysterious.
Dinner Dance:A poignant remark of decadence and sexual objectification (sic) set in Whitechapel in just two pages.
Freshwater:A family on holiday tries to continue after the mother has left them. The voice of children abandoned by their mother has an almost hypnotic quality.
Human Terrain:War and its terrors. A narration that is extremely relevant to our troubled times.
Things We Did When We Were Children:A group of utter imbeciles leave their country to become brides of the ISIS. Their end is just what they deserve.
They Were the Only Ones Dancing:A beautiful story about an evening in May, a rather “wild” pub, a man who can’t cope with his wife’s passing and a dancing couple. A tale about love, set during a heatwave in the city.
“In the distance, firecrackers boomed and snapped; the children from the next farm starting the June celebrations early. Part of Ivy wished she was that age again, to not remember two world wars, to not know what people could do to each other. Another shower of cracks and bangs. Something hit the window. A greasy halo was imprinted on the glass. The children’s noise had scared a bird out of the sky.”
A Glimmer of Melting Ice:A woman remembers her life by the side of her late husband. While the farm comes alive with the coming of June, she thinks of snow and ice.
Fences: An enigmatic neighbour with an obsession of mending his fence becomes a metaphor for the deteriorating marriage of a young couple. An atmospheric, haunting story of two presumptuous people who spy on others and are unable to distinguish between the “joke” and the mistake.
“The concrete and brick around him throb with the unexpected heat of autumn; the sort of day that doesn’t know itself. Trees in Bethnal Green Gardens have been fooled into bringing out buds, daffodils peek from the mud, even though it’s much too late in the year. London’s sky is an apricot haze of tumbled clouds. ”
Open House:An elderly man reminisces of the losses in his life during an “open house” auction.
“Remember me when I am gone away. ”
Shoots and Weeds:A beautiful story about the bond between a gardener and Nature. Lyrical writing, full of striking images and tender melancholy.
The Jam Trap: Another striking story of youth expectations and near tragedies, set during the last days of summer.
Somebody Said :A dark, painful story about child abuse and the traumas that follow you all your life.
A Match: The most beautiful one-page story I’ve ever read.
“Above the rooftops of Whitechapel, the sky smoulders, clouds of purple smother the last of the bank holiday fun, balanced in this August night, 1888. A brackish redness, the
tincture of twilight, trickles like laudanum through the streets, empty but for remnants of feathers and beads from the fair; drifting but finding no rest.”
Beginnings and Endings: Catherine Eddowes,Elizabeth Stride, Annie Chapman, Mary Ann Nichols, Martha Tabram.
Such brutal and raw and beautiful writing in a story that takes us to Whitechapel and Jack the Ripper, as his victims acquire voice through the darkness of History. The style reminded me of Michel Faber and Sarah Perry and it was the perfect ending to a haunting collection.
This is definitely one of the finest collections of the year and I can’t wait to explore Emily Bullock’s work.
“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
It’s far too late for night-time prayers.”
Many thanks to Reflex Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.