The Taxidermist's Lover

November 1, 2020
In this modern gothic, Scarlett recounts a calendar year with her taxidermist lover, Henry, the year he turned his trade into high art, mixing animals into creepy, hybrid creations. Told in two alternating time lines--one set on Christmas Day, at the end of a year where it is clear things have not gone well, and the other, in diary fashion with one chapter per month, including Scarlett's reflections on her troubled childhood, when she was orphaned along with her twin brother at age 10--this an absorbing story that sucks readers into its disquieting explorations of love, art, and what happens to the spirit when the body is preserved. As the months pass and ignorant bliss merges with darkness and threats both real and (maybe?) imagined, the menace increases slowly but relentlessly, permeating every corner, and the twists, plentiful but also well earned, pile up, resolving in a near-perfect horror ending. In this lyrical debut, told with the confidence of a veteran, Hall's protagonist, Scarlett, will get under your skin as you fall deeper into her increasingly claustrophobic world. For fans of immersive, highly personal, and dangerous stories like The Unsuitable (2020), by Molly Pohlig, and Fever Dream (2017), by Samanta Schweblin.

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