Parallel Hells

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His own unconscious prejudice, until this moment, was the previously faceless fact that he had never before been acknowledged. The horror I like best isn’t necessarily gory or in your face but rather a subtle creeping sense of dread, or something being off. In one story, titled “raw pork and opium,” a character re-applies her lipstick in the only reflective surface to be found “the kitchen knife we used to rack up lines. While Craig has filled this book with recognizable horror elements, she seems to be telling us that the most spine-chilling thing is the everyday human experience.

The author uses unfinished 'endings' too often where the reader sits and goes "Wtf was that supposed to mean?

Reflective surfaces are not far away in Leon Craig’s debut short story collection, Parallel Hells, either. It is such a fresh and playful approach to storytelling that you cannot help but be totally enamoured with Craig's abilities. Patronised by London’s precariat, the conversations we witness here needle at entrenched social issues and pick at the political fabric of the city in the pre-election years. The little details make the stories more encompassing and really add to the eerie theme of the collection.

I found the best stories were the ones that were a little longer, because they gave Craig a chance to flex her impressive writing muscles and created more space for her examination of the human condition through these surreal vibes. Yet, they are terrified of being noticed, like the rat which causes a horrifying shock when he scurries through Stan and Marie’s flat.Whilst a party next door throbs through the walls, she drifts through her house with a ghostly lack of purpose. Overall, the longer of the stories worked the best, allowing Craig to get into their stride and flesh out characters to their fullest potential, without losing the tension and the mystery of the unseen crucial to a great gothic tale.

In the thirteen darkly audacious stories of Parallel Hells we meet a golem, made of clay, learning that its powers far exceed its Creator's expectations; a ruined mansion which grants the secret wishes of a group of revellers and a notorious murderer who discovers her Viking husband is not what he seems. All of the stories play on surrealism and I love that they are influenced by folklore and other gothic literature. But in the chapter titled “The Flat ,” we are thrust into the primary voyeuristic perspective, as though we are watching David, who has just moved into a new apartment, through a hole in the wall. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.I have given this book three stars because for me they represent not a comment on the author's writing but on the failure of the stories in this collection to match up to the praise and promotion they have received. The short, twisted tales collected in Leon Craig's Parallel Hells have a laconic elegance that's both chilling and pleasurable .

Is it right to decide that it's ok to remove something negative from somebody else's life without consent? Leon Craig confidently navigates real places and imaginary spaces most of us shy away from and leaves us deliciously teased, unsettled and hungry for more . The irony is glaring: how can a demon, which drapes itself in human skin and walks among humans, which has spent centuries slaughtering serfs and massacring armies in hedonistic pursuits of pleasure, find sustenance in such comparatively small earthly “shames? A glorious collection of short stories that reads as if Edgar Allan Poe and Shirley Jackson had a little queer baby . To discover more content exclusive to our print and digital editions, subscribe here to receive a copy of The London Magazine to your door every two months, while also enjoying full access to our extensive digital archive of essays, literary journalism, fiction and poetry.Whilst the chapters in this story are loosely-linked vignettes, what all the characters share is the claustrophobia of a caver. Part-way through the narrative of this story, the page splits and we are presented with two characters’ perspectives running parallel down the page.