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A subversive literary horror novel that disrupts the tropes of women's historical fiction with delusions, wild beasts, and the uncontainable power of female rage
The year is 1901, and Ada Byrd — spinster, schoolmarm, amateur naturalist — accepts a teaching post in isolated Lowry Bridge, grateful for the chance to re-establish herself where no one knows her secrets. She develops friendships with her neighbors, explores the woods with her students, and begins to see a future in this tiny farming community. Her past — riddled with grief and shame — has never seemed so far away.
But then, Ada begins to witness strange and grisly phenomena: a swarm of dying crickets, a self-mutilating rabbit, a malformed faun. She soon believes that something old and beastly — which she calls Grey Dog — is behind these visceral offerings, which both beckon and repel her. As her confusion deepens, her grip on what is real, what is delusion, and what is traumatic memory loosens, and Ada takes on the wildness of the woods, behaving erratically and pushing her newfound friends away. In the end, she is left with one question: What is the real horror? The Grey Dog, the uncontainable power of female rage, or Ada herself?
"Gish's prose is as sharp as a scalpel...The novel's diaristic format lends itself perfectly to the revelations that unfold, and the ending will haunt readers long after the final page is turned." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Grey Dog is a slow-burn feminist horror novel with a lush setting and an explosive payoff." ―Foreword Reviews
"Grey Dog is a haunting historical gothic, exquisitely detailed and suffused with queer longing, violent trauma, and escalating dread. Set your first impressions aside: this is a work of overwhelming intensity that will take you in its teeth and shake you." ―David Demchuk, author of Red X
"Elliott Gish has produced a ripe, exquisitely rendered gothic in which wildernesses, both interior and natural, are dangerous, seductive, and bloody spaces. Ada Byrd is an iconic character, equal to Carmilla or Eleanor Vance." ―Kelly Link, author of White Cat, Black Dog
"Grey Dog is a slow-burn horror story that unfolds so smoothly and subtly you don't realize until it's far too late that all the walls are on fire and the story has its hands wrapped around your throat. A thrilling ride." ―Suzette Mayr, author of The Sleeping Car Porter
This information about Grey Dog was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Elliott Gish is a writer and librarian from Halifax, where she lives with her partner. A graduate of Simon Fraser University's Writer's Studio, Gish's fiction has appeared in many journals, including the New Quarterly, the Baltimore Review, and the Dalhousie Review, and was nominated for a 2022 Pushcart Prize.
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