Geraldine Mills
Hellkite
ISBN:
9781851321001 paperback
9781851321018 hardback
In this, her third short fiction collection, Geraldine Mills extends her thematic range to excavate new and shifting landscapes. Not afraid to tackle taboos, Hellkite occupies a space all of its own, where gender expectations are re-aligned to explore woman’s inhumanity to man. Here we meet women who inhabit the world of the hellkite, who are unfaithful to their men, who treat them with contempt, who lock them away in rooms of little ease. Within these small masterpieces, she shines a high-definition light on such cruelty to create a territory of the unspoken.
Geraldine Mills is a fiction writer of astounding verve and style. Her stories are edgy, vivid, darkly funny and at times, scarifying in a way that is almost primal. In this writer’s world, there is no such thing as ordinary life, and we are all the better for it. It is rare indeed to come across a writer whose prose is so infused with imagery and poetic nuance. At times, it’s like being inside a short movie where the reader is taken on a sometimes scary but always beautiful and captivating journey only with no guarantee of a safe arrival. I love these stories – the voice is markedly original and enthralling and there are no words wasted.
– Ferdia MacAnna