Praise
Knucklebones is a brilliant debut novel written with a poetic eye, filled with characters that truly live, and a pace that had me barrelling through the last half of the book. For decades, Marni Scofidio has written such incredible short stories that I’ve long wished for a full novel, and Knucklebones is even better than I dared hope. It’s dark, chilling, and delicious, written with a unique and individual style. You’d be a knucklehead to miss it. A marvellous book.
Scofidio has an inspired and unique way of looking at the world, and, what’s more important, is able to convey to us her vision, not only of the landscape that lies before her eyes, but the landscape of the soul . . . She is fully there in every word. She knows. And she can make us see.
[Scofidio is] a world-class writer whose stories have appeared in prestigious ‘Best of’ horror anthologies. To get an idea of her style, imagine the ghost story writer M.R. James colliding with Pats and Eddy from Absolutely Fabulous... If you consider yourself an aficionado of dark fiction, please do not miss the opportunity to read her works, exquisite macabre treasures to be cherished.
Knucklebones is one of the sharpest horror novels I’ve read in the past two years, a truly fascinating study in human psychology, repression, and rage. . . Like Poe and Blackwood, Scofidio excels at exploring both sides of the human condition: the physical and the psychological; the corrupted sinews of the flesh and the sublime expanses of the soul.
[Knucklebones is] a page-turning novel-reader’s novel. A Horror novel that it never tries not to be; in fact it drops names. A work that is dreamcatching of some literary force. Lifecatching, too. And tantalisingly elusive and allusive, words where you hopefully find the Querent. Mighty or not.
Scofidio cites the fiction of Angela Carter as inspiration, but her ambiguous handling of the uncanny suggests the influence of Robert Aickman.
[In] ‘Last Train to Amos Grove’ . . . Scofidio pulls off a work of originality and something I can only describe as creeping fear. This is the kind of story done to perfection by Ramsey Campbell and Thomas Ligotti, and which stands here as an equal to a story from those amazing gents.
The more than 50 contributions (in Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Sixth Annual Collection, ed. Datlow and Windling) defy generalisation but are highlighted by (amongst others) . . . Scofidio’s piece about a party game/séance gone bad.
Thank you for making me want to read again.
Scofidio imbues her brainchild (Doctor Knife) with a Dorothy Parker dryness, entirely fitting for the fresh Hell she finds herself at the gates of. Leonora keeps her wits about her, weighing up each successive compromise, never imagining the more important scales are the ones over her eyes, preventing her from seeing the whole picture. Eyes, indeed, are a recurring motif, as is the threat of enucleation. With a name befitting a Surrealist, it often seems that the most famous scene from Un Chien Andalou is spooling silently in Leonora's background.
The author has a fine eye for the disquieting detail, such as a Barbie doll contorted into an impossible pose, and the telling absence, principally Nye's daughter, Justine. Like Rebecca in Du Maurier's novel, the latter's repeatedly invoked presence is more potent for her non-appearance. Even the newspaper headlines begin to spill over with disappearing bodies.