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The Unheimlich Manoeuvre
The Unheimlich Manoeuvre is a collection of short stories based around ideas of the domestic uncanny – the Unheimlich. The stories in this collection don’t fall into the conventional ‘haunted house’ bracket, but explore the psychological horror that occurs when home is subverted as a place of safety, when it becomes surreal, changes, and even disappears…
In these stories, a coma patient awakes to find herself replaced by a doppelganger, a ghost estate reflects doubles of both houses and inhabitants, a woman looks for the site of a Gothic atrocity, a suburban enclave takes control of its trespassers, and a beaten woman exacts revenge.
Just as the Heimlich Manoeuvre restores order, health and well-being, the Unheimlich Manoeuvre does quite the opposite.
In these stories, a coma patient awakes to find herself replaced by a doppelganger, a ghost estate reflects doubles of both houses and inhabitants, a woman looks for the site of a Gothic atrocity, a suburban enclave takes control of its trespassers, and a beaten woman exacts revenge.
Just as the Heimlich Manoeuvre restores order, health and well-being, the Unheimlich Manoeuvre does quite the opposite.
142 pages, Hardcover
First published July 16, 2016
4 people are currently reading
81 people want to read
About the author
Tracy Fahey
41 books53 followersTracy Fahey is an award-winning Irish author of six books. Her collection 'I Spit Myself Out' won the 2025 Rubery International Book Award, and her novella 'What Happens At The End' was awarded the 2024 Paul Cave Prize for Literature. Fahey has been a British Fantasy Award finalist in 2017, 2022, and 2024, and shortlisted for the 2024 London Independent Story Prize. She was granted a Saari Fellowship for 2023 by the Kone Foundation. Her short fiction is published in fifty Irish, US and UK anthologies and she has been awarded residencies in Ireland, Scotland, Finland and Greece. She holds a PhD on the Gothic and lectures in creative writing, folk horror and the Gothic at the Limerick School of Art and Design, TUS.
Her website is at www.tracyfahey.com.
Her website is at www.tracyfahey.com.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
September 18, 2016
There are some wonderful stories here.
Single author collections -especially first ones - can be erratic affairs, a wildly mixed bag, the result of a new author experimenting, trying to find their won voice through different styles. Tracy Fahey doesn't have that issue. Her voice is her own and her obsessions plainly evident. There are themes linking these tales - quiet desperation, domestic disharmony, the troubling nature of the uncanny - but no repetition. Each well-crafted story throws a different light on weirdly disconcerting moments, hidden in the every day.
From straight-up ghost stories like 'Tracing the Spectre' to the more deftly psychological 'Papering Over the Cracks' to the gothic tragedy (in a modern day setting) of 'Sealed', Fahey succeeds, time and again, in creating a perfect little capsule exploring her central thesis in a way that is different from all the rest. There are even stories that you would struggle to call horror, like 'Perfect Pitch' and 'Two Faced' that still carry enough tension and sense of unease not to feel out of place.
In short, this is a collection carefully constructed to unsettle and disturb in strange and subtle ways. It succeeds.
Single author collections -especially first ones - can be erratic affairs, a wildly mixed bag, the result of a new author experimenting, trying to find their won voice through different styles. Tracy Fahey doesn't have that issue. Her voice is her own and her obsessions plainly evident. There are themes linking these tales - quiet desperation, domestic disharmony, the troubling nature of the uncanny - but no repetition. Each well-crafted story throws a different light on weirdly disconcerting moments, hidden in the every day.
From straight-up ghost stories like 'Tracing the Spectre' to the more deftly psychological 'Papering Over the Cracks' to the gothic tragedy (in a modern day setting) of 'Sealed', Fahey succeeds, time and again, in creating a perfect little capsule exploring her central thesis in a way that is different from all the rest. There are even stories that you would struggle to call horror, like 'Perfect Pitch' and 'Two Faced' that still carry enough tension and sense of unease not to feel out of place.
In short, this is a collection carefully constructed to unsettle and disturb in strange and subtle ways. It succeeds.
December 9, 2018
This review first appeared on scifiandscary.com. I received a free copy of the book to review.
‘The Unheimlich Manoeuvre’ is a beguiling, unsettling collection of short stories that’s well worth your time if you have a taste for subtle, creepy horror. The 13 tales it contains are well written and varied enough to keep things interesting. Despite that variety, there are common themes running throughout the book that makes this feel like a well thought out, deliberate collection rather than the random hodgepodge that anthologies can sometimes be.
The stories are a mix of the out and out supernatural and what you might call tales of everyday madness, where apparently normal people do unspeakable things. There are ghostly doppelgangers, psychotic spouses, haunted houses and many, many things seen out of the corner of characters' eyes.
This is the horror of suspicion and doubt, where you don’t know if you can trust those around you or your own senses. At times it almost feels Lovecraftian, there is that same feeling of ever present threats lurking unseen in the shadows. Whilst there aren’t any direct ties between them, the stories all feel like they take place in the same universe. This creates a cumulative effect through the book, the terror of each story layering on that of the tales that precede it. It’s as if Fahey is painting different parts of a bigger picture with each story, and whilst that picture isn’t necessarily complete by the end of the book, the parts that are visible are terrifying.
The stories are also tied together by a sense of domesticity. The lives and environments that they revolve around are familiar and consistent. The women Fahey writes about (and the main characters are all women) are convincing and sympathetic. They feel like people you might know, and that makes the stories all the more chilling. It’s as if the events might be taking place in the house next door to you without you knowing.
Short stories can be hard to get right, but Fahey writes such brilliant openings that the reader is immediately pulled you into the narrative. Take these examples:
I’m writing the story of me and Charles Anderson. It’s a story from the year I turned twenty and went travelling. It’s a story of where we went and what came back.
On the third day she finds it on the attic wall. She’s in the middle of the slow but satisfying ritual of stripping wallpaper; first soaking, and then unpeeling back the thick flaps of flock wallpaper from the green-painted plaster beneath.
Ten days after. Everything in my life falls neatly into two divisions: before and after I saw something nasty in the woodshed.
Horror shorts can feel gimmicky, like elaborate shaggy dog stories that revolve around the final punchline, but Fahey’s never do. They leap off the page fully formed and the combination of enticingly creepy scenarios and believable characters is a winning one.
I’ve quite deliberately not gone into detail about any of the individual stories here, because I liked them so much I don’t want to risk spoiling them for you. Suffice it to say that this was the best collection of horror shorts I’ve read this year - it’s convincing, gripping, chilling and filled with a wonderfully macabre imagination.
‘The Unheimlich Manoeuvre’ is a beguiling, unsettling collection of short stories that’s well worth your time if you have a taste for subtle, creepy horror. The 13 tales it contains are well written and varied enough to keep things interesting. Despite that variety, there are common themes running throughout the book that makes this feel like a well thought out, deliberate collection rather than the random hodgepodge that anthologies can sometimes be.
The stories are a mix of the out and out supernatural and what you might call tales of everyday madness, where apparently normal people do unspeakable things. There are ghostly doppelgangers, psychotic spouses, haunted houses and many, many things seen out of the corner of characters' eyes.
This is the horror of suspicion and doubt, where you don’t know if you can trust those around you or your own senses. At times it almost feels Lovecraftian, there is that same feeling of ever present threats lurking unseen in the shadows. Whilst there aren’t any direct ties between them, the stories all feel like they take place in the same universe. This creates a cumulative effect through the book, the terror of each story layering on that of the tales that precede it. It’s as if Fahey is painting different parts of a bigger picture with each story, and whilst that picture isn’t necessarily complete by the end of the book, the parts that are visible are terrifying.
The stories are also tied together by a sense of domesticity. The lives and environments that they revolve around are familiar and consistent. The women Fahey writes about (and the main characters are all women) are convincing and sympathetic. They feel like people you might know, and that makes the stories all the more chilling. It’s as if the events might be taking place in the house next door to you without you knowing.
Short stories can be hard to get right, but Fahey writes such brilliant openings that the reader is immediately pulled you into the narrative. Take these examples:
I’m writing the story of me and Charles Anderson. It’s a story from the year I turned twenty and went travelling. It’s a story of where we went and what came back.
On the third day she finds it on the attic wall. She’s in the middle of the slow but satisfying ritual of stripping wallpaper; first soaking, and then unpeeling back the thick flaps of flock wallpaper from the green-painted plaster beneath.
Ten days after. Everything in my life falls neatly into two divisions: before and after I saw something nasty in the woodshed.
Horror shorts can feel gimmicky, like elaborate shaggy dog stories that revolve around the final punchline, but Fahey’s never do. They leap off the page fully formed and the combination of enticingly creepy scenarios and believable characters is a winning one.
I’ve quite deliberately not gone into detail about any of the individual stories here, because I liked them so much I don’t want to risk spoiling them for you. Suffice it to say that this was the best collection of horror shorts I’ve read this year - it’s convincing, gripping, chilling and filled with a wonderfully macabre imagination.
June 4, 2019
Review Posted On Kendall Reviews - March 21, 2019
Tracy Fahey, an Irish writer of Gothic fiction, is published in more than twenty US and UK anthologies. The Girl In The Fort, her first novel, was published by Fox Spirit Press in 2017, and Black Shuck Books released her second collection, New Music For Old Rituals in 2018. Two of her short stories, ‘Walking The Borderlines’ and ‘Under The Whitethorn’ were longlisted for Honourable Mentions in The Best Horror of the Year Volume 8. In 2017, her debut collection, the second edition released this year and featured in this review is, The Unheimlich Manoeuvre , was shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award. This new edition contains revised versions of the original stories and a brand-new tale, ‘Something Nasty In The Woodpile'.
When I chose this book for review, the title intrigued and puzzled me at the same time, until I read the description within that states, ‘just as the Heimlich Manoeuvre restores order, health, and well-being, The Unheimlich Manoeuvre does quite the opposite,’ and I couldn’t agree more. This novel explores physiological horror, and a couple of the thirteen short stories I would describe as Domestic-Noir with an even darker edge, if such a thing is possible, and trust me it is. If you’re looking for a happy, neatly tied up ending after reading each of these stories, you won’t find it in this book. What you may feel is empathy, shock, possibly anger, and a sense of hope for these characters, some of which are dangling by a thread of sanity, when, by stories end, their nightmares are just beginning. Some readers may find the need closure at the end of each tale, but, I feel doing so would dilute the darker side of each, the endings that pack such a punch that leave you speculating how it all turns out, those are my favorites.
I can't speak highly enough about Fahey's writing, and I look forward to re-reading The Unheimlich Manoeuvre and every story this author writes.
I won’t include all thirteen stories in this review, but I will touch on some of my favorites. The novel opens with ‘Coming Back', a story about a woman who wakes up from a coma with no recollection of who she is, nothing but darkness in the skin she’s now in, desperately trying to find the light.
‘People like you, who become so severely ill, often find it difficult to remember things.’ ‘Don’t try; it’s a good kind of amnesia . . . .’
The second tale in the collection is called the ‘Ghost Estate Phase II', told from the second person point of view; an unknown narrator is deciding your every move.
‘After what’s happened, you don’t cope too well. Things are ugly and strange . . . . The familiar things about you turn hard and hostile . . . . The only thing that makes sense is to leave. So you do.’ A friend offers you her house to stay in, a ghost estate. ‘Don’t expect anything,’ she warns. ‘It’ll be awful,’ and she’s right, but your free, or are you?
‘Walking The Borderlines’ is told from the first-person point of view, the narrator is writing a story from the year she turned twenty, some fifteen years ago, about the man she met while traveling, and what came back.
‘‘I’m sitting here, trying to remember what happened fifteen years ago. I remember lots of disjointed things about that Parisian summer; like a recovering amnesiac . . . .’ ‘I had that inflated, giddying feeling when you meet someone you click with; when you can think of nothing more intoxicating than becoming the friend of this new, fascinating person.’’
When one of their conversations moves to a particular topic, I had an idea as to how this story would play out, but I was wrong in one aspect of the narrative and right in the other, and to say any more would spoil it for you.
‘Long Shadows' is a story about a woman who sees a therapist, Dr. Smith, to talk about her reoccurring dreams that now are interfering with her day to day life.
‘They keep coming, night after night. Again and again. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t want to sleep –where I’m afraid to sleep.’
‘The Woman Next Door’ is hands down one of my top favorites in this collection, an ending that I didn’t see coming, though I should have. Fahey does an excellent job telling this story about a new mother who has a love-hate relationship with her newborn.
‘‘I’m tired all the time since he came. Tired and overwhelmed and overpowered by it all; the feelings, the smells, the sounds, the weight and feel of him . . . .’ ‘Now he’s out, we’re apart yet never-apart, all at once. I love him. I resent him. He’s the biggest thing that ever happened to me.’’
Laura, the main character, loves her newborn but misses how things were when she was thin, working, wearing nice clothes instead of a tracksuit, and hair that isn’t knotted and pulled back in a ponytail. Her new neighbor on the other hand, who also has a baby, is ‘glossy and pretty in a carefully-manicured way,’ and Laura is jealous of her perfection, and that’s all I’m going to tell you.
‘Tracing The Spectre’ is about a small group of interdisciplinary international artists who are given twenty-four hours to conduct an artist-led paranormal investigation in Knocknamara Castle in Ireland. The narrator, a photographer, is one of the five individuals chosen for this project who come from different parts of the world and have unique personalities. I’d love to see this made into a novella or novel.
‘‘Afterwards it’s hard to recall the exact sequence of events. Some stand out, light-bright . . . .’ ‘And some of them can never be forgotten.’’
‘Papering Over The Cracks’ is about a married couple who are renovating their dream home, a Georgian mansion with four floors including a basement and attic. Mark, an architect, loves Georgian period architecture and is one of the things that first attracted Donna to him, though secretly she prefers the Victorian style. To please her, Mark offers her the attic room, a place to decorate and call her own. It’s on the third day of renovating, as she strips away the 1970s wallpaper in the attic, she finds a drawing that ‘stirs something within her, a lively, impatient curiosity to find out where it comes from,’ that soon turns into an obsession.
‘Something Nasty In The Woodshed’ is a tale that’s divided into reflections of the narrator’s life before and after making such a horrific discovery in the woodshed.
‘Before evokes visions of a pristine kitchen table, dappled with yellow-green sunlight and neatly laid with folded napkins. Even if there were long days of physical pain, they were filled with love, and soft pillows and hand-holding. After? Well, after is a different story.’
‘Sealed’ is a story about a fourteen-year-old girl living in a single parent household who wants nothing more than for her mother to come and see her dance recital. When her mother is unable, though she tries, harsh words are spoken that can never be unsaid, changing the teenager’s life forever.
‘Look Like You. I Speak Like You. I Walk Like You’ is about twin girls, Susie and Stella, who are separated and adopted by different families at a young age when something horrific happens to their mother. There isn’t a lot I can say about this story without giving too much away. I will say this, think Domestic-Noir with a sadistic twist.
‘When I close my eyes I picture us like this, twinned and embryo-close, secure within our black and white bubble. I see our one true tale diverge and then splinter into fractured narratives.’
If my review or the synopsis of The Unheimlich Manoeuvre sparked your interest, then, by all means, take a bite, and delve into the creative mind of the author – you may be surprised by what you find lurking within.
Tracy Fahey, an Irish writer of Gothic fiction, is published in more than twenty US and UK anthologies. The Girl In The Fort, her first novel, was published by Fox Spirit Press in 2017, and Black Shuck Books released her second collection, New Music For Old Rituals in 2018. Two of her short stories, ‘Walking The Borderlines’ and ‘Under The Whitethorn’ were longlisted for Honourable Mentions in The Best Horror of the Year Volume 8. In 2017, her debut collection, the second edition released this year and featured in this review is, The Unheimlich Manoeuvre , was shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award. This new edition contains revised versions of the original stories and a brand-new tale, ‘Something Nasty In The Woodpile'.
When I chose this book for review, the title intrigued and puzzled me at the same time, until I read the description within that states, ‘just as the Heimlich Manoeuvre restores order, health, and well-being, The Unheimlich Manoeuvre does quite the opposite,’ and I couldn’t agree more. This novel explores physiological horror, and a couple of the thirteen short stories I would describe as Domestic-Noir with an even darker edge, if such a thing is possible, and trust me it is. If you’re looking for a happy, neatly tied up ending after reading each of these stories, you won’t find it in this book. What you may feel is empathy, shock, possibly anger, and a sense of hope for these characters, some of which are dangling by a thread of sanity, when, by stories end, their nightmares are just beginning. Some readers may find the need closure at the end of each tale, but, I feel doing so would dilute the darker side of each, the endings that pack such a punch that leave you speculating how it all turns out, those are my favorites.
I can't speak highly enough about Fahey's writing, and I look forward to re-reading The Unheimlich Manoeuvre and every story this author writes.
I won’t include all thirteen stories in this review, but I will touch on some of my favorites. The novel opens with ‘Coming Back', a story about a woman who wakes up from a coma with no recollection of who she is, nothing but darkness in the skin she’s now in, desperately trying to find the light.
‘People like you, who become so severely ill, often find it difficult to remember things.’ ‘Don’t try; it’s a good kind of amnesia . . . .’
The second tale in the collection is called the ‘Ghost Estate Phase II', told from the second person point of view; an unknown narrator is deciding your every move.
‘After what’s happened, you don’t cope too well. Things are ugly and strange . . . . The familiar things about you turn hard and hostile . . . . The only thing that makes sense is to leave. So you do.’ A friend offers you her house to stay in, a ghost estate. ‘Don’t expect anything,’ she warns. ‘It’ll be awful,’ and she’s right, but your free, or are you?
‘Walking The Borderlines’ is told from the first-person point of view, the narrator is writing a story from the year she turned twenty, some fifteen years ago, about the man she met while traveling, and what came back.
‘‘I’m sitting here, trying to remember what happened fifteen years ago. I remember lots of disjointed things about that Parisian summer; like a recovering amnesiac . . . .’ ‘I had that inflated, giddying feeling when you meet someone you click with; when you can think of nothing more intoxicating than becoming the friend of this new, fascinating person.’’
When one of their conversations moves to a particular topic, I had an idea as to how this story would play out, but I was wrong in one aspect of the narrative and right in the other, and to say any more would spoil it for you.
‘Long Shadows' is a story about a woman who sees a therapist, Dr. Smith, to talk about her reoccurring dreams that now are interfering with her day to day life.
‘They keep coming, night after night. Again and again. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t want to sleep –where I’m afraid to sleep.’
‘The Woman Next Door’ is hands down one of my top favorites in this collection, an ending that I didn’t see coming, though I should have. Fahey does an excellent job telling this story about a new mother who has a love-hate relationship with her newborn.
‘‘I’m tired all the time since he came. Tired and overwhelmed and overpowered by it all; the feelings, the smells, the sounds, the weight and feel of him . . . .’ ‘Now he’s out, we’re apart yet never-apart, all at once. I love him. I resent him. He’s the biggest thing that ever happened to me.’’
Laura, the main character, loves her newborn but misses how things were when she was thin, working, wearing nice clothes instead of a tracksuit, and hair that isn’t knotted and pulled back in a ponytail. Her new neighbor on the other hand, who also has a baby, is ‘glossy and pretty in a carefully-manicured way,’ and Laura is jealous of her perfection, and that’s all I’m going to tell you.
‘Tracing The Spectre’ is about a small group of interdisciplinary international artists who are given twenty-four hours to conduct an artist-led paranormal investigation in Knocknamara Castle in Ireland. The narrator, a photographer, is one of the five individuals chosen for this project who come from different parts of the world and have unique personalities. I’d love to see this made into a novella or novel.
‘‘Afterwards it’s hard to recall the exact sequence of events. Some stand out, light-bright . . . .’ ‘And some of them can never be forgotten.’’
‘Papering Over The Cracks’ is about a married couple who are renovating their dream home, a Georgian mansion with four floors including a basement and attic. Mark, an architect, loves Georgian period architecture and is one of the things that first attracted Donna to him, though secretly she prefers the Victorian style. To please her, Mark offers her the attic room, a place to decorate and call her own. It’s on the third day of renovating, as she strips away the 1970s wallpaper in the attic, she finds a drawing that ‘stirs something within her, a lively, impatient curiosity to find out where it comes from,’ that soon turns into an obsession.
‘Something Nasty In The Woodshed’ is a tale that’s divided into reflections of the narrator’s life before and after making such a horrific discovery in the woodshed.
‘Before evokes visions of a pristine kitchen table, dappled with yellow-green sunlight and neatly laid with folded napkins. Even if there were long days of physical pain, they were filled with love, and soft pillows and hand-holding. After? Well, after is a different story.’
‘Sealed’ is a story about a fourteen-year-old girl living in a single parent household who wants nothing more than for her mother to come and see her dance recital. When her mother is unable, though she tries, harsh words are spoken that can never be unsaid, changing the teenager’s life forever.
‘Look Like You. I Speak Like You. I Walk Like You’ is about twin girls, Susie and Stella, who are separated and adopted by different families at a young age when something horrific happens to their mother. There isn’t a lot I can say about this story without giving too much away. I will say this, think Domestic-Noir with a sadistic twist.
‘When I close my eyes I picture us like this, twinned and embryo-close, secure within our black and white bubble. I see our one true tale diverge and then splinter into fractured narratives.’
If my review or the synopsis of The Unheimlich Manoeuvre sparked your interest, then, by all means, take a bite, and delve into the creative mind of the author – you may be surprised by what you find lurking within.
March 9, 2017
This is a very assured first collection. It's been described as domestic horror but it's anything but mundane. Even where the stories are set abroad they have a very claustrophobic quality. Large events that affect whole communities are focused through the microscope of personal interactions, which are beautifully observed. Although there are twists, Tracy Fahey never plays for cheap shocks.
Recommended.
Recommended.
March 4, 2021
There was something about these stories that just weren't working for me for a good part of the book, but when I got to one called SEALED, which is almost two thirds into it by the way, things took a turn. My mood somehow changed. It made me think about the how well the others actually worked with it in the collection. It made me appreciate them more, you know? It's just puzzling why it took me so long.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say here is that this one is worth sticking with if you happen to feel the same way.
Now, it might just be a headspace kind of thing, because the last third of this book was terrific. I mean really terrific. I was really sucked into the stories. The settings, the emotions, just everything. It was first class.
So, I've thought hard about this. It's bordering on 4.5, but I think I'm going to stick with a four star rating.
A solid four, that is. An eight out of ten.
My feeling is that this is one of those collections that need to be revisited. I think it's more appreciated the second time around.
And that's a good thing. Trust me.
Absolutely worth buying.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say here is that this one is worth sticking with if you happen to feel the same way.
Now, it might just be a headspace kind of thing, because the last third of this book was terrific. I mean really terrific. I was really sucked into the stories. The settings, the emotions, just everything. It was first class.
So, I've thought hard about this. It's bordering on 4.5, but I think I'm going to stick with a four star rating.
A solid four, that is. An eight out of ten.
My feeling is that this is one of those collections that need to be revisited. I think it's more appreciated the second time around.
And that's a good thing. Trust me.
Absolutely worth buying.
October 24, 2018
This collection of short stories are definitely uncanny, a few disturbing, a few horrific! They are very subtle, they aren’t gory, bloody but by the end you get that knowledge of wrongness! A good read! Creepy-Long Shadows! Disturbing-Ghost Estate, Phase II, The Woman Next Door, Walking The Borderlines! I could go on & on, just pick this one up and see for yourself!!
August 26, 2018
Although I hadn't read any of Tracy Fahey's fiction, despite her writing being well within my favourite genre of horror, I picked up a copy of this at a recent-ish convention and can honestly say it is one of the best collections I've read in a long-time.
I won't name a favourite story, and although one or two weren't my cup of tea, the quality of writing is superb throughout.
Read this, especially if you like your horror fiction urban and modern with a nod to J G Ballard.
I won't name a favourite story, and although one or two weren't my cup of tea, the quality of writing is superb throughout.
Read this, especially if you like your horror fiction urban and modern with a nod to J G Ballard.
September 20, 2020
I first read this book a few years ago in its original incarnation as a limited edition hardback from Boo Books, but it's since reappeared in various formats courtesy of the Sinister Horror Company. I'm so glad I decided to re-read it, especially now it's gained a wider readership!
One of the first thing I noticed when I read the acknowledgments page was the unusually high ratio of original stories to reprints, which made a refreshing change from the tendency of authors to pack their collections with previously published 'hits'. Often the stories written especially for the collection are in a small minority, but in this one, the original material accounts for over half the stories, which I feel is a brave choice on the part of the author, as these stories have not already been tried and tested 'in the wild'.
If it's a gamble, it undoubtedly pays off, because these previously unpublished tales provide some of the highlights of this excellent collection. One such is 'The Woman Next Door', the story that stuck out head and shoulders above the rest when I read the book the first time around. Telling of a new mother's obsessive envy for her immaculately-groomed neighbour, whose own baby seems to have no impact on her fashionable lifestyle, it's about the bleakest, most unnerving portrayal of post-partum depression and anxiety you could ever read. It showcases one of Fahey's defining core strengths: her acute observation of fault-lines in relationships and her speciality, domestic uncanny, hence the title's play on the German word for 'uncanny', literally 'unhomely'.
Indeed, Fahey's fiction could be said to have much in common with the recently-heralded sub-genre of crime fiction known as domestic noir. One of her main themes is coercive control, predominantly by men, and she covers its entire spectrum, from the patronising, petty nit-picking in 'Papering Over the Cracks', with its echoes of the classic 'The Yellow Wallpaper', to extreme, psychopathic violence and battery in 'I Look Like You. I Speak Like You. I Walk Like You', another outstanding story with a devastating but horribly logical twist.
'Papering Over the Cracks' contrasts a Mark and Donna's conflicting approaches to interior design in a tale where in retrospect the line 'His love of Georgian architecture is one of the things that first attracted her to him' should have been a red flag rather than a point in his favour, especially when he starts putting his cutlery down in a 'precise, irritable way' in response to her deviating from his neo-classical ideals. Watching over their disintegrating relationship is a strange drawing behind the wallpaper of the great aunt whose former house they're in and whose resemblance to the Donna is uncanny in both senses of the word.
There's more domestic disharmony in 'Two Faced', which does what it says on the tin, a tale of two halves, holiday from Hell shown from the divergent viewpoints of long-suffering Kate and fussy-eater Alex, this structure emphasising the mutual incomprehension of the pair, so well-observed it triggered a domestic between me and my own significant other when we both read it!
This story and 'Perfect Pitch' may disappoint those looking for horror in the conventional sense, though there are undoubtedly horrific aspects to the latter in its portrayal of a mind unravelling under stress, while the horror in 'Two Faced' is the horror of each half of the couple's blindness in relation to what's really going on with both of them. If anyone says these stories are not horror, I'd be happy to disabuse them of that view. 'Perfect Pitch' is one of the few stories in the collection where the woman has the upper hand over the man, but the results are far from edifying. The only other one where she eventually gains it is 'I Look Like You. I Speak Like You. I Walk Like You', but at a shockingly terrible price. I won't say too much about this one, because I want you to experience how it plays out for yourself...
Far from all the stories herein are tales of dysfunctional male-female relationships. The dark shadow looming over the narrator's friendship with Charles in 'Walking the Borderlines' isn't that he's a controlling brute (he isn't!), but just their shared perception of a mysterious world beyond most people's awareness, in this charming but melancholy blend of cosmic horror and coming-of-age story.
'Ghost Estate, Phase II' and 'A Lovely Place to Live' both start with a woman going to live in a new Irish neighbourhood to explore economic unease and social insecurity around the housing situation in the Republic after the 2007 crash. In the first of these, the title refers to housing developments partly abandoned due to funds drying half-way through construction, and so makes a nice companion piece to Priya Sharma's 'The Ballad of Boomtown'; while the second suggests with delicious gallows humour the lengths to which some home owners will go in order to protect property values.
Another one of Fahey's core strengths is her way with the 'paranormal investigation' narrative, one she demonstrated effortlessly in 'Playing in Their Own Time', which I read in an anthology and also appears in her subsequent collection New Music for Old Rituals. That story was based around a TV broadcast. The focus of 'Tracing the Spectre' is an art installation, and Fahey creates a vivid ensemble piece, with all the clashing personalities in the heightened situation of a haunted Irish castle. In both this and 'Long Shadows' she also shows her mastery of the killer final line.
One of the first thing I noticed when I read the acknowledgments page was the unusually high ratio of original stories to reprints, which made a refreshing change from the tendency of authors to pack their collections with previously published 'hits'. Often the stories written especially for the collection are in a small minority, but in this one, the original material accounts for over half the stories, which I feel is a brave choice on the part of the author, as these stories have not already been tried and tested 'in the wild'.
If it's a gamble, it undoubtedly pays off, because these previously unpublished tales provide some of the highlights of this excellent collection. One such is 'The Woman Next Door', the story that stuck out head and shoulders above the rest when I read the book the first time around. Telling of a new mother's obsessive envy for her immaculately-groomed neighbour, whose own baby seems to have no impact on her fashionable lifestyle, it's about the bleakest, most unnerving portrayal of post-partum depression and anxiety you could ever read. It showcases one of Fahey's defining core strengths: her acute observation of fault-lines in relationships and her speciality, domestic uncanny, hence the title's play on the German word for 'uncanny', literally 'unhomely'.
Indeed, Fahey's fiction could be said to have much in common with the recently-heralded sub-genre of crime fiction known as domestic noir. One of her main themes is coercive control, predominantly by men, and she covers its entire spectrum, from the patronising, petty nit-picking in 'Papering Over the Cracks', with its echoes of the classic 'The Yellow Wallpaper', to extreme, psychopathic violence and battery in 'I Look Like You. I Speak Like You. I Walk Like You', another outstanding story with a devastating but horribly logical twist.
'Papering Over the Cracks' contrasts a Mark and Donna's conflicting approaches to interior design in a tale where in retrospect the line 'His love of Georgian architecture is one of the things that first attracted her to him' should have been a red flag rather than a point in his favour, especially when he starts putting his cutlery down in a 'precise, irritable way' in response to her deviating from his neo-classical ideals. Watching over their disintegrating relationship is a strange drawing behind the wallpaper of the great aunt whose former house they're in and whose resemblance to the Donna is uncanny in both senses of the word.
There's more domestic disharmony in 'Two Faced', which does what it says on the tin, a tale of two halves, holiday from Hell shown from the divergent viewpoints of long-suffering Kate and fussy-eater Alex, this structure emphasising the mutual incomprehension of the pair, so well-observed it triggered a domestic between me and my own significant other when we both read it!
This story and 'Perfect Pitch' may disappoint those looking for horror in the conventional sense, though there are undoubtedly horrific aspects to the latter in its portrayal of a mind unravelling under stress, while the horror in 'Two Faced' is the horror of each half of the couple's blindness in relation to what's really going on with both of them. If anyone says these stories are not horror, I'd be happy to disabuse them of that view. 'Perfect Pitch' is one of the few stories in the collection where the woman has the upper hand over the man, but the results are far from edifying. The only other one where she eventually gains it is 'I Look Like You. I Speak Like You. I Walk Like You', but at a shockingly terrible price. I won't say too much about this one, because I want you to experience how it plays out for yourself...
Far from all the stories herein are tales of dysfunctional male-female relationships. The dark shadow looming over the narrator's friendship with Charles in 'Walking the Borderlines' isn't that he's a controlling brute (he isn't!), but just their shared perception of a mysterious world beyond most people's awareness, in this charming but melancholy blend of cosmic horror and coming-of-age story.
'Ghost Estate, Phase II' and 'A Lovely Place to Live' both start with a woman going to live in a new Irish neighbourhood to explore economic unease and social insecurity around the housing situation in the Republic after the 2007 crash. In the first of these, the title refers to housing developments partly abandoned due to funds drying half-way through construction, and so makes a nice companion piece to Priya Sharma's 'The Ballad of Boomtown'; while the second suggests with delicious gallows humour the lengths to which some home owners will go in order to protect property values.
Another one of Fahey's core strengths is her way with the 'paranormal investigation' narrative, one she demonstrated effortlessly in 'Playing in Their Own Time', which I read in an anthology and also appears in her subsequent collection New Music for Old Rituals. That story was based around a TV broadcast. The focus of 'Tracing the Spectre' is an art installation, and Fahey creates a vivid ensemble piece, with all the clashing personalities in the heightened situation of a haunted Irish castle. In both this and 'Long Shadows' she also shows her mastery of the killer final line.
February 5, 2017
You can find my full review of The Unheimlich Manoeuvre on my speculative fiction book blog.
Summary: if you can get your hands on this book, do. It is superb.
Summary: if you can get your hands on this book, do. It is superb.
March 7, 2017
Full review of this exceptional collection of horror short stories is here: http://www.spookyisles.com/2017/03/un...
June 24, 2020
This is my first experience of Tracy Fahey’s work and it’s a very good place to start. Boasting 17 stories, this collection is a great way to try out the author’s writing style and range.
The book starts with a very informative introduction by Ms Fahey about the meaning behind the title and the reasons she wanted to write the book. For me, personally, I didn’t really see the requirement for this until I had read the stories that followed. The way my brain works, I always want to jump straight in, much of the time I don’t even read the back of the book! I just dive on into the pages and lose myself in the words. It took me some time as a child to learn the importance of reading the prologue because I always dismissed it as though it wasn’t part of the story.
Having read the rest of the book, I understand why Fahey wanted to ease us into it with a bit of an explanation. If you enjoy introductions, you’ll enjoy this one.
Heading into the stories themselves, this is a very real horror. It’s not your standard Monster lurking around corners, it’s the unavoidable monster, you.
These stories are packed with human nature and some really did set me on edge. It’s nice to be tested as a reader and I feel that this is what Fahey’s stories do. They force you to turn around that mirror, the one you spend your life avoiding and look inside yourself. It can take even the smallest of situations to take you from your comfy reading spot, to a main character in one of her tales.
The ones that I felt hit home hardest for me are as follows;
Coming Back
This is the first story of the book and we follow the experiences of a person who has just come out of a coma. I enjoyed the way this was written because it very much conveyed the confusion that this experience would have on a person. Part of the reason it hit home so hard was the hospital experiences noted are familiar to me, growing up my sister was often in the hospital and therefore I was there visiting. To read it from the point of view of the patient themselves was a new experience of a very familiar setting for me.
That Thing I Did
I absolutely loved this story, it set my nerves on edge just as intended by a situation like the one in the book. The way the grief of the main character plays out, the way things gradually build, and the thing it ends with is just perfect for this story. This one may well be my favourite of the collection.
The Woman Next Door
This story is based around the struggle of a new mother, the fight between absolute love and resentment of the changes in your life. The way everyone else seems to be doing things right and it’s only going wrong for you. I had this very feeling yesterday, and I was only trying to put a bicycle on a bike rack! The story takes us through the routine of this new mother, the feelings she encounters with this “tiny overlord” as the author put it (and by the way, my newly adopted term for “child”) . In all honesty it describes my precise reasons to be concerned about becoming a parent myself. The story ends in such a gut punch I’m not going to tell you. You’ll have to read it yourself and feel it yourself.
Something Nasty in the Woodshed
This story centers around a woman experiencing something I’ve read about before, being the wife of a person who has done something terrible. The way it won’t ever leave you alone. We read over her experiences of the fortnight that follows the discovery of something in her woodshed. The way she does everything right, but still faces speculation. It delves into how far you’d go for love, but also how someone else can do something out of love for you, that manages to ruin everything so completely that it’s irretrievable.
The Wrong House
Once again centred around confusion, much like Coming Back, but in a different way. This story centres around a man who is experiencing a profound wrongness, a deep and unspoken confusion that he needs to work through to find the truth.
I Look Like You, I Speak Like You, I Walk Like You
I very much enjoyed this story, Fahey brings the experiences of the main character over to us so effortlessly. A dark spin on twins reuniting that really sets it apart from the usual stories.
As always, imagery is a must for me as a reader and I really felt that this collection had it all as far as I was concerned. I absolutely flew through this book.
The book closes with another chapter from the author filled with Story Notes, which would be of interest to most readers, but I found it was quite helpful for reviewing purposes also. It’s not often I come across a book set up like this one but it’s nice to have all the information there even if you’re not going to read those bits every time you pick it up. It could be a good reference point to go back to later.
I would recommend checking this one out, these are the kind of stories you could sit down and read over a lunch break or a cup of coffee. The only problem you’re going to have is in wanting to put it down and go back to work.
The book starts with a very informative introduction by Ms Fahey about the meaning behind the title and the reasons she wanted to write the book. For me, personally, I didn’t really see the requirement for this until I had read the stories that followed. The way my brain works, I always want to jump straight in, much of the time I don’t even read the back of the book! I just dive on into the pages and lose myself in the words. It took me some time as a child to learn the importance of reading the prologue because I always dismissed it as though it wasn’t part of the story.
Having read the rest of the book, I understand why Fahey wanted to ease us into it with a bit of an explanation. If you enjoy introductions, you’ll enjoy this one.
Heading into the stories themselves, this is a very real horror. It’s not your standard Monster lurking around corners, it’s the unavoidable monster, you.
These stories are packed with human nature and some really did set me on edge. It’s nice to be tested as a reader and I feel that this is what Fahey’s stories do. They force you to turn around that mirror, the one you spend your life avoiding and look inside yourself. It can take even the smallest of situations to take you from your comfy reading spot, to a main character in one of her tales.
The ones that I felt hit home hardest for me are as follows;
Coming Back
This is the first story of the book and we follow the experiences of a person who has just come out of a coma. I enjoyed the way this was written because it very much conveyed the confusion that this experience would have on a person. Part of the reason it hit home so hard was the hospital experiences noted are familiar to me, growing up my sister was often in the hospital and therefore I was there visiting. To read it from the point of view of the patient themselves was a new experience of a very familiar setting for me.
That Thing I Did
I absolutely loved this story, it set my nerves on edge just as intended by a situation like the one in the book. The way the grief of the main character plays out, the way things gradually build, and the thing it ends with is just perfect for this story. This one may well be my favourite of the collection.
The Woman Next Door
This story is based around the struggle of a new mother, the fight between absolute love and resentment of the changes in your life. The way everyone else seems to be doing things right and it’s only going wrong for you. I had this very feeling yesterday, and I was only trying to put a bicycle on a bike rack! The story takes us through the routine of this new mother, the feelings she encounters with this “tiny overlord” as the author put it (and by the way, my newly adopted term for “child”) . In all honesty it describes my precise reasons to be concerned about becoming a parent myself. The story ends in such a gut punch I’m not going to tell you. You’ll have to read it yourself and feel it yourself.
Something Nasty in the Woodshed
This story centers around a woman experiencing something I’ve read about before, being the wife of a person who has done something terrible. The way it won’t ever leave you alone. We read over her experiences of the fortnight that follows the discovery of something in her woodshed. The way she does everything right, but still faces speculation. It delves into how far you’d go for love, but also how someone else can do something out of love for you, that manages to ruin everything so completely that it’s irretrievable.
The Wrong House
Once again centred around confusion, much like Coming Back, but in a different way. This story centres around a man who is experiencing a profound wrongness, a deep and unspoken confusion that he needs to work through to find the truth.
I Look Like You, I Speak Like You, I Walk Like You
I very much enjoyed this story, Fahey brings the experiences of the main character over to us so effortlessly. A dark spin on twins reuniting that really sets it apart from the usual stories.
As always, imagery is a must for me as a reader and I really felt that this collection had it all as far as I was concerned. I absolutely flew through this book.
The book closes with another chapter from the author filled with Story Notes, which would be of interest to most readers, but I found it was quite helpful for reviewing purposes also. It’s not often I come across a book set up like this one but it’s nice to have all the information there even if you’re not going to read those bits every time you pick it up. It could be a good reference point to go back to later.
I would recommend checking this one out, these are the kind of stories you could sit down and read over a lunch break or a cup of coffee. The only problem you’re going to have is in wanting to put it down and go back to work.
March 1, 2019
I first heard of Tracy Fahey’s The Unheimlich Manoeuvre in a review by Jim Mcleod, the head of the Ginger Nuts of Horror site (I'm a fellow reviewer on the site). Tracy’s book was in his list of top horror books read in 2018. I am a HUGE fan of short story collections, and the review alluded that this book contained the type of darkness I like most.
I’m so glad I picked this one up. The book is a perfect mix of ghost stories, revenge stories and stories about loss. Subject matter aside, I love Tracy’s writing style. Something about her tone just resonates with me. Even though the tales are dark and creepy, I still felt a little cozy while reading them because she writes like I think in my head. All stories are well-paced with just enough details to show the scene but not enough to clutter a page. And even though the stories are short, all main characters are well-developed and are easily relatable for the reader.
Per my usual, I’ll summarize the stories without giving too much away. If you like dark stories, I highly recommend at least reading my favorites: Something Nasty in the Woodshed, Papering Over the Cracks, and I Look Like You. I Speak Like You. I Walk Like You.
Coming Back - This story follows a woman as she awakens from a coma and doesn’t remember her past. Can you imagine how disorienting it would be try and make a future without having a past to bank upon? Although on some days, that actually sounds really enticing to me. A very clever story.
Ghost Estate, Phase II - After a traumatic experience, someone is offered a remote place to stay awhile to clear their head. There are two “phases” to the estate - Phase I which is finished and populated, and Phase II which is boarded off and under construction. At first the Phase II portion seems like a nice place to sneak into for relaxing even further away from people, but things aren’t always what they seem. This story was nice and creepy, but didn’t stand out for me like some of the others.
Walking the Borderlines - Lately I’ve been really into ghosts and ghosts stories, and this story follows two people who have an ability to see and hear people from “the other side.” I don’t want to divulge too much, but I finished the story with a longing to have that ability as well (think of all we could learn from the past!). I wish the story would have had more occurrences with the paranormal, but that may just be me.
Long Shadows - In a therapy session, Sophie recounts upsetting dreams that haunt her every night. The dreams are pretty creepy, and the ending is terrific.
The Woman Next Door - Laura is a new mom feeling overwhelmed by the endless responsibilities that came with the new baby. She becomes obsessed with the woman next door, whom she thinks is perfect and beautiful, and finds herself watching her neighbor constantly. Life is not always what it seems, though.
Tracing the Spectre - A group of people working on a collaborative paranormal investigative project decide to camp out in a haunted castle in Ireland. This turned out to be a perfect little ghost story.
Papering Over the Cracks - Donna and Mark are a young couple who bought the perfect old Georgian house which belonged to Donna’s late great aunt. While remodeling an attic room, they find a mysterious image underneath the wallpaper. The ending for this one took me by surprise, and was sad. I love sad endings.
Two Faced - This is a clever story about a strained marriage told first in the wife’s point of view, then in the husband’s. This story is not scary but interesting just the same. Makes me wonder how many marriages are really like this.
Something Nasty in the Woodshed - After reading the title, I tried to predict what was in the woodshed - I was wrong. It was a brilliant story with an ethical dilemma that reads like a great horror movie.
Sealed - The main character in this story is what I would call agoraphobic. The thought of venturing outside terrifies her. Not a scary story, but it is heartbreaking and it was interesting to me to see life through the eyes of someone with agoraphobia.
A Lovely Place to Live - A young woman moves into a new community where the residents are very invested in keeping up appearances, and in alarming ways. I love how Tracy made me feel suffocated within the neighborhood, and I don’t even live there!
I Look Like You. I Speak Like You. I Walk Like You. - I like stories that make me angry because I’m likely to remember them for a long while. Stella lives with an abusive man, which is enough to make me angry, but then there’s more...very moving.
Looking for Wildgoose Lodge - In this story, the main character recounts the story of a horrific massacre as told by her grandmother. After her grandmother passed away, she decides to search for the place where everything happened. A very touching story, especially for anyone missing a loved one. I’d never heard of the Massacre of Wildgoose Lodge, so I asked Tracy about it and learned it was an actual event (and she has conducted a lot of research about it).
After reading the book, Tracy was gracious enough to chat with me about this collection. One of the things she said stuck with me the most: “With each story I tried to capture a moment when the world pivots and twists, and what was sweet and familiar becomes strange and terrible.” Mission accomplished.
The Unheimlich Manoeuvre is one of my favorite short story collections. While not all of the stories are ones I’d reread, every story is very well crafted. This is a must read for fans of dark stories.
I’m so glad I picked this one up. The book is a perfect mix of ghost stories, revenge stories and stories about loss. Subject matter aside, I love Tracy’s writing style. Something about her tone just resonates with me. Even though the tales are dark and creepy, I still felt a little cozy while reading them because she writes like I think in my head. All stories are well-paced with just enough details to show the scene but not enough to clutter a page. And even though the stories are short, all main characters are well-developed and are easily relatable for the reader.
Per my usual, I’ll summarize the stories without giving too much away. If you like dark stories, I highly recommend at least reading my favorites: Something Nasty in the Woodshed, Papering Over the Cracks, and I Look Like You. I Speak Like You. I Walk Like You.
Coming Back - This story follows a woman as she awakens from a coma and doesn’t remember her past. Can you imagine how disorienting it would be try and make a future without having a past to bank upon? Although on some days, that actually sounds really enticing to me. A very clever story.
Ghost Estate, Phase II - After a traumatic experience, someone is offered a remote place to stay awhile to clear their head. There are two “phases” to the estate - Phase I which is finished and populated, and Phase II which is boarded off and under construction. At first the Phase II portion seems like a nice place to sneak into for relaxing even further away from people, but things aren’t always what they seem. This story was nice and creepy, but didn’t stand out for me like some of the others.
Walking the Borderlines - Lately I’ve been really into ghosts and ghosts stories, and this story follows two people who have an ability to see and hear people from “the other side.” I don’t want to divulge too much, but I finished the story with a longing to have that ability as well (think of all we could learn from the past!). I wish the story would have had more occurrences with the paranormal, but that may just be me.
Long Shadows - In a therapy session, Sophie recounts upsetting dreams that haunt her every night. The dreams are pretty creepy, and the ending is terrific.
The Woman Next Door - Laura is a new mom feeling overwhelmed by the endless responsibilities that came with the new baby. She becomes obsessed with the woman next door, whom she thinks is perfect and beautiful, and finds herself watching her neighbor constantly. Life is not always what it seems, though.
Tracing the Spectre - A group of people working on a collaborative paranormal investigative project decide to camp out in a haunted castle in Ireland. This turned out to be a perfect little ghost story.
Papering Over the Cracks - Donna and Mark are a young couple who bought the perfect old Georgian house which belonged to Donna’s late great aunt. While remodeling an attic room, they find a mysterious image underneath the wallpaper. The ending for this one took me by surprise, and was sad. I love sad endings.
Two Faced - This is a clever story about a strained marriage told first in the wife’s point of view, then in the husband’s. This story is not scary but interesting just the same. Makes me wonder how many marriages are really like this.
Something Nasty in the Woodshed - After reading the title, I tried to predict what was in the woodshed - I was wrong. It was a brilliant story with an ethical dilemma that reads like a great horror movie.
Sealed - The main character in this story is what I would call agoraphobic. The thought of venturing outside terrifies her. Not a scary story, but it is heartbreaking and it was interesting to me to see life through the eyes of someone with agoraphobia.
A Lovely Place to Live - A young woman moves into a new community where the residents are very invested in keeping up appearances, and in alarming ways. I love how Tracy made me feel suffocated within the neighborhood, and I don’t even live there!
I Look Like You. I Speak Like You. I Walk Like You. - I like stories that make me angry because I’m likely to remember them for a long while. Stella lives with an abusive man, which is enough to make me angry, but then there’s more...very moving.
Looking for Wildgoose Lodge - In this story, the main character recounts the story of a horrific massacre as told by her grandmother. After her grandmother passed away, she decides to search for the place where everything happened. A very touching story, especially for anyone missing a loved one. I’d never heard of the Massacre of Wildgoose Lodge, so I asked Tracy about it and learned it was an actual event (and she has conducted a lot of research about it).
After reading the book, Tracy was gracious enough to chat with me about this collection. One of the things she said stuck with me the most: “With each story I tried to capture a moment when the world pivots and twists, and what was sweet and familiar becomes strange and terrible.” Mission accomplished.
The Unheimlich Manoeuvre is one of my favorite short story collections. While not all of the stories are ones I’d reread, every story is very well crafted. This is a must read for fans of dark stories.
January 31, 2024
In the pages of “The Unheimlich Manoeuvre” you travel down dark and unsettling pathways through the inner lives of a set of disorientated, dislocated and downright terrified characters. You share their pain confusion and fear and the experience is intense, but when you emerge back into the light, you will be glad you made the journey, because this collection of gothic short stories is superb.
Tracy Fahey has a light touch. She is sparing and never overloads her narrative with the unnecessary. Detail, description and dialogue are economical, yet intense and vivid. We feel what the narrator feels, we see what she sees. The stories are subtle and sometime ambiguous, sometimes terrifyingly obvious. “Something Nasty In The Woodshed” for example. The horror is there, obvious, shown to us right at the start, but there is no shouting or pointing, no screaming or shrillness. The understated prose is the perfect counterpoint to the life-destroying awfulness that confronts the protagonist.
There is a seriousness to these stories, but that doesn’t make then heavy or turgid. They are sudden moments of crisis. There is not always a nice, neat resolution, but a lingering dread and, as with “I Look Like You. I Speak Like You. I Walk Like You” and “A Lovely Place To Live”, a moment of sheer horror when you understand what is happening and that there is no shrinking back from the threshold the story has carried you over and nothing that you can do to change the nightmare that has been revealed. The latter of those tales is a masterclass in daubing long, chilling shadows over the golden hue of a sunny day.
The collection’s last story, “Looking For Wildgoose Lodge” is the perfect closer, its poignant final lines sum up the storyteller’s lot beautifully. I wholeheartedly recommend “The Unheimlich Manoeuvre” by Tracy Fahety to anyone who loves unsettling, finely-crafted short fiction.
Tracy Fahey has a light touch. She is sparing and never overloads her narrative with the unnecessary. Detail, description and dialogue are economical, yet intense and vivid. We feel what the narrator feels, we see what she sees. The stories are subtle and sometime ambiguous, sometimes terrifyingly obvious. “Something Nasty In The Woodshed” for example. The horror is there, obvious, shown to us right at the start, but there is no shouting or pointing, no screaming or shrillness. The understated prose is the perfect counterpoint to the life-destroying awfulness that confronts the protagonist.
There is a seriousness to these stories, but that doesn’t make then heavy or turgid. They are sudden moments of crisis. There is not always a nice, neat resolution, but a lingering dread and, as with “I Look Like You. I Speak Like You. I Walk Like You” and “A Lovely Place To Live”, a moment of sheer horror when you understand what is happening and that there is no shrinking back from the threshold the story has carried you over and nothing that you can do to change the nightmare that has been revealed. The latter of those tales is a masterclass in daubing long, chilling shadows over the golden hue of a sunny day.
The collection’s last story, “Looking For Wildgoose Lodge” is the perfect closer, its poignant final lines sum up the storyteller’s lot beautifully. I wholeheartedly recommend “The Unheimlich Manoeuvre” by Tracy Fahety to anyone who loves unsettling, finely-crafted short fiction.
March 25, 2020
I had the pleasure of reading the deluxe edition of this collection - I’m not sure what is new or added to this collection, but either way it is a sumptuous, horrific gem of a book!
There is a strange heart beating within its pages and the uncanny seems to fester and hang over this book like a vengeful veil - fabulous prose, haunting brilliance, horror in its varying shades - this is a book that needs to be discovered!
Also to top it off the story ‘I Look Like You. I Speak Like You. I Walk Like You’ is a masterstroke in horror - it’s raw and bold and oh so brilliant. It brings to mind the great Daphne du Maurier’s ‘The Scapegoat’ but on steroids! A truly haunting story that is one of the best short stories I’ve ever read...
A wonderful collection. A talented author. And a collection that will cause you some sleepless nights...
There is a strange heart beating within its pages and the uncanny seems to fester and hang over this book like a vengeful veil - fabulous prose, haunting brilliance, horror in its varying shades - this is a book that needs to be discovered!
Also to top it off the story ‘I Look Like You. I Speak Like You. I Walk Like You’ is a masterstroke in horror - it’s raw and bold and oh so brilliant. It brings to mind the great Daphne du Maurier’s ‘The Scapegoat’ but on steroids! A truly haunting story that is one of the best short stories I’ve ever read...
A wonderful collection. A talented author. And a collection that will cause you some sleepless nights...
February 7, 2021
It is hard to believe that this was Tracey Fahey's first collection — it appears to spring fully formed, with a distinctive and confidant tone.
The stories in this volume are steeped in a sort of familiar urban horror, the kind that takes place behind locked doors and drawn curtains, steeped in failed relationships, unwise gap years, bricks and mortar. Although the stories are filled with the supernatural and the horrific they never descend into the fantastic or the gory, remaining instead rooted in a solid, material, sense of place (often Ireland), which Fahey depicts with elegant economy.
One or two of the stories are a little less polished than the rest, but the stand-outs, especially "Papering over the cracks" and "Sealed" are packed with a visceral yet enigmatic horror that will keep you thinking about them for weeks after.
Well worth the read.
The stories in this volume are steeped in a sort of familiar urban horror, the kind that takes place behind locked doors and drawn curtains, steeped in failed relationships, unwise gap years, bricks and mortar. Although the stories are filled with the supernatural and the horrific they never descend into the fantastic or the gory, remaining instead rooted in a solid, material, sense of place (often Ireland), which Fahey depicts with elegant economy.
One or two of the stories are a little less polished than the rest, but the stand-outs, especially "Papering over the cracks" and "Sealed" are packed with a visceral yet enigmatic horror that will keep you thinking about them for weeks after.
Well worth the read.
April 17, 2025
Misleading title.
Gives the sense that this is gonna be a pulpy, maximalist thrill ride. A real spook show. A one way ticket to ghoul town on Johnny Dracula's murder express.
Instead, it's the most grounded horror anthology I've come across. Impressively restrained tales of entirely unsupernatural dread. Sets up an unpleasant premise or situation, then ends with grace before moving on to the next.
Tracey Fahey has a real knack for delivering captivating yet ordinary human drama. One of the best entries in here is one that drops the spooky spiel entirely and just focuses on an unhappy couple's miserable trip to Vienna.
One or two forgettable entries and dud endings, but nothing worth dropping more than one star over.
Gives the sense that this is gonna be a pulpy, maximalist thrill ride. A real spook show. A one way ticket to ghoul town on Johnny Dracula's murder express.
Instead, it's the most grounded horror anthology I've come across. Impressively restrained tales of entirely unsupernatural dread. Sets up an unpleasant premise or situation, then ends with grace before moving on to the next.
Tracey Fahey has a real knack for delivering captivating yet ordinary human drama. One of the best entries in here is one that drops the spooky spiel entirely and just focuses on an unhappy couple's miserable trip to Vienna.
One or two forgettable entries and dud endings, but nothing worth dropping more than one star over.
March 13, 2020
You can see my full review (and all of my other complete reviews) at https://wordpress.com/posts/mediadrom...
Rounded up from 3.5-4 stars for GoodReads.
Overall, this was a great collection of stories. I wish I could rate it higher, because what I liked (which was most of it), I liked a lot, but Two Faced really tanked it for me. If you have some insight into that one, I’d really love to hear it because it really just missed for me in a big way.
That being said, I still think that everyone should go out and buy the new edition (out today) from Sinister Horror Company because I promise, it’s worth a read.
Rounded up from 3.5-4 stars for GoodReads.
Overall, this was a great collection of stories. I wish I could rate it higher, because what I liked (which was most of it), I liked a lot, but Two Faced really tanked it for me. If you have some insight into that one, I’d really love to hear it because it really just missed for me in a big way.
That being said, I still think that everyone should go out and buy the new edition (out today) from Sinister Horror Company because I promise, it’s worth a read.
March 25, 2021
A captivating series of stories, each of them a sort of 'domestic gothic'—unreal excursions into and out of the everyday, all told with a confident authorial tone which belies this as the author's first collection. Tales of marriage and home-making, intimate and passing relationships, anxiety, identity, and domestic abuse—neighbours, family, lovers, friends, all of them passing seamlessly into the realms of horror and the supernatural.
An incredibly strong and assured collection, absolutely recommended.
An incredibly strong and assured collection, absolutely recommended.
July 22, 2019
Fahey clearly has a style all of her own. It feels very gothic, but the stories mostly have modern settings. Perhaps this is not new, but it felt very fresh to this reader. Stories set in present day housing estates and family situations, but with a classic sense of dread. Brilliant characters, captivating writing and plenty of dread. I'm so glad I picked up this book!
October 21, 2022
This was a great collection of stories, a good variety!
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