She can summon characters into being and fill them with life with astonishing concision and vigour (you are told relatively little about the figures who populate her book, but somehow you feel you know them intimately), and she is able to capture the world in constructions that are unusual, precise and often beautiful. The stories continue to surprise. The first one Starver seems set up to be a standard teenage anorexia story when a girl announces she is going to stop eating, and does. But metamorphosing into an eel is very much not part of the standard script. And is there a link to the last story where a female lighthouse keeper encounters a fish that seems to have almost human qualities. Look out in that one for the representations of male sexuality which wants to possess rather than enjoy. It’s a project she first explains as being inspired by the authors she was reading and studying when she started working on the collection in 2014, writers such as Sarah Hall, Kelly Link, Karen Russell and Mary Gaitskill. “A lot of short-story writers are … creating stories that otherwise might be realistic, but have this seed of change in the middle,” Johnson says, citing Hall’s award-winning story Mrs Fox, in which a woman changes into a vixen during a woodland walk: “The transformation destroys the reality around it.” Daisy Johnson's book came to me by chance. I retweeted a contest, didn't know what books to say I liked, and was given a surprise bundle. The moment I read the blurb, I knew I had to read it. So I've been dipping in and out. Female protagonists each find themselves rooted in a British landscape that's familiar, but surrounded by a world that isn't. She’s already working on novel exploring another liminal zone – the network of canals that thread through post-industrial Britain. Mixed with the nervousness that makes Johnson sit up straight in her chair, measuring out each answer with stop-start care, is a confidence that the wide spaces of the fen have helped her to find her voice.

This starts with a distraught mother greeting people who are enquiring after her absent son, who used to draw crowds for mysterious reasons: This sprawl of coastal terrain, often known as the Fens, has frequently attracted the attention of contemporary novelists (one thinks of Graham Swift's Waterland, of Peter Kingsnorth's The Wake). They are attracted by its strangeness: by the richness of a landscape that seems to confound the distinction between land and sea, that hosts horizons so vast as to seem calculated to inspire feelings of introspection, uncertainty, of terrible portent. Things don't work normally here.Flood, Alison (23 July 2018). "Man Booker prize 2018 longlist includes graphic novel for the first time". The Guardian . Retrieved 24 July 2018. Daisy Johnson’s debut publication is composed of a series of linked short stories that take place in the marshlands of eastern England. Daisy Johnson is youngest Booker nominee". BBC News. 20 September 2018 . Retrieved 13 October 2018. Two stories which stood out for me were “A bruise the Shape and Size of a Door Handle” where the house appeared to be jealous of the first love of the girl living in it; and “The Superstition of Albatross” about waiting without hope. Another story worth noting is ‘Starver” which is about a girl with anorexia and her sister. The story conveys the powerlessness of anyone to help her and it is deeply moving. However, I’ve seen very similar symbolism in “The Vegetarian” by Hang Kan. And there, it is more beautifully crafted and explored. Just finished rereading Daisy Johnson's story collection Fen. Just as powerful and beautiful and dark and strange as the first time. One of my favourite books of all time. -- Jeff Vandermeer

She decided to do ghost stories because of the “amazing” tradition of people sitting around a fire, or in a room, telling their tales. I came to this book, after reading Daisy Johnson’s wonderful Everything Under – a book I described, alliteratively as a “literary novel of the liminal, language, leaving and legend, longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker prize.” There’s no one specific source for the hotel, with its gothic-style long chimneys and stained glass windows. Located “not far from Cambridge, or the sea on the train,” it throws a wide beacon over the East of England. The Romans were the first to drain the Fens, but it’s ongoing, never permanent: nature is strong. This opens with unexpected consequences of recent drainage: eels everywhere, but there’s something not quite right about them, nor with Katy’s sister - and there’s a connection. It explores identity, sisterhood, and transformation in a very similar way to Han Kang’s The Vegetarian (see my review HERE).

by Daisy Johnson

MSt alumna Daisy Johnson 'On getting an offer for my writing …' ". Master's in Creative Writing. Oxford University. 2 March 2015 . Retrieved 13 October 2018. Johnson, Daisy (7 January 2015). "There Was a Fox in the Bedroom". Boston Review . Retrieved 13 October 2018. Many of these characters are young women and teenagers exploring the emotional and sexual power of their incipient womanhood. “There’s something about being a teenager – I remember it as being awful. I’m sure not everyone does, but it’s such a strange time. Everything you look at, all the little bits, like going to the pub, are really weird, because you’re going through this massive breakdown of person.”

a b c "Daisy Johnson: 'If I weren't living off my writing I'd be a shepherd' ". www.newstatesman.com. 22 August 2018 . Retrieved 13 October 2018. The plan is to select and read a book every month, then discuss the work during the month’s last week (to give everyone time to read it!). I will post some questions/quotes to get things started, but I would love for this to grow into an open discussion with and between you all. Whenever possible I hope to have the author, or another prominent voice on the subject, join the conversation. Ik bots niet vaak op boeken waarin iets gebeurt wat niet in de realiteit kan gebeuren. Het genre van de fantasy zoek ik niet op, en aan de pure science fiction heb ik me nog niet vaak gewaagd. Toch komt er af en toe een boek op mijn pad waarvan ik lichtjes ga duizelen, omdat ik tijdens het lezen zaken zie gebeuren die ik niet voor mogelijk hield. Vanderhoof, Erin (1 November 2018). "How 27-Year-Old Author Daisy Johnson Re-Invented the Oedipus Myth". Vanity Fair. Image: “And now for something completely different” – Monty Python’s Albatross sketch ( Source and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrqW_...)

Summary

Daisy Johnson's story collection Fen was unanimously beloved... firmly situating her among the UK's most exciting new voices. -- Marta Bausells * Elle * Water is definitely Ms Johnson’s medium. Her Man Booker Prize shortlisted novel Everything Under (2018) is set along the canals of Oxford, where she now lives. While her short story in Hag: Forgotten Folktales Retold (2020) retells ‘The Green Children of Woolpit’ Suffolk tale with a tainted well. Read More Related Articles The writing is beautiful, and made the elements of magic injected into most of the stories completely plausible, as well as being magical each was so human. Reading this was a joy, I had to stop reading to save some for the next evening. Kushner, Rachel; Burns, Anna; Edugyan, Esi; Robertson, Robin; Powers, Richard; Johnson, Daisy (13 October 2018). "How I write: Man Booker shortlist authors reveal their inspirations". The Guardian . Retrieved 13 October 2018.