The Gold Leaf Executions by Helen Marshall

Publisher – Unsung Stories

Published – Out Now

Price – currently limited edition £35 hardback via Unsung Stories

There was a way of killing people you told me about. You found it in a book, an old one: gilded edges and a cracked spine, boards that had warped like the hull of a ship.

A young boy takes up the Egyptian art of embalming to win the girl of his dreams. Four devils play knucklebones, as they search for a way out of Hell.

In these stories the dead turn up in unexpected places: buried in the walls of newbuilds, washed up on deserted riverbanks, housed in the carcass of a giant sea creature, flung from bridges only to return to their homes, asking for cream and sugar with their coffee. All the while, the living search for ways to hold onto their happiness, knowing how thin the boundary is between their place and the next.

By turns poignant, surprising and darkly funny, World Fantasy Award-winner Helen Marshall crosses the territory of ancient stories, fairy tales and urban legends in search of new myths for the troubled times we live in.

One of the joys of reading is finding an author you’ve not read before, and they make such an impression that means you want to read what they’ve done earlier. A few years ago I was very impressed by The Migration by Helen Marshall a strange tale that initially looked like it will be another zombie novel and turned into this stranger imagining of climate change forcing humanity to evolve to survive. I continued to realise I really enjoyed these genre crossing tales (I’m not sure New weird in 2023 still cane be new!) and one publisher who strives to deliver unique fiction and I’ve never been disappointed yet is Unsung Stories. When they announced they’re releasing a limited edition of Helen Marshall’s short fiction without reading any bar one story previously I dived in/ What I got was a beautiful book filled with strange beautiful tales that are both a pleasure to read and importantly linger long after reading and I suspect will do so for a long time afterwards.

If looking for a tale that explains what the reader is in for then the opening tale and gives the book it’s title is ‘The Gold Leaf Executions’. We get a narrator telling us how they and their partner fell in love, and it’s interrupted with little (and well told) myths, and all have a theme of sudden doom; not least that eating gold leaf could kill you – beauty can destroy you from the inside. A Partner’s wish to visit family is suddenly unleashing all the feels that the love of our lives may never be seen again. This could be a long-simmering result the narrator knows is coming or their irrational fear. The tale allows both interpretations and we don’t know the final outcome. It is like so many tales to come both beautiful and just a tad unsettling.

Trying to sum up a collection can be tricky, but we do have three key dimensions. There are tales that flow more towards the horror side of speculative fiction. ‘Vault of Heaven’ is a period piece of a amoral young archaeologist working in an empty Greek museum and deciding a young local woman will be his next conquest. His purring arrogance makes you dislike him and then he finds himself bewitched by an object and falls into a mystery suggesting much stranger nastier things are forever watching. Marshall throws lust, love, and a growing sense of ominous doom that the inter-war period setting finely hints towards. Marshall goes for the more absurd yet unexplainable side of horror in ‘Caro in Caro’ a strange young girl and her grandmother are owed a debt by their village and yet hated for it. Having the tale told by the young girl means there are mysteries we are not going to understand for quite a bit of the tale. It hints of madness, monsters and that people will have unlucky endings very soon. It never fully reveals itself either which makes the tale just that bit more unsettling too. Finally in this group I must say how much I loved ‘Exposure’. A young unhappy tourist goes to a strange Greek island with her mother. Th chance not to be nagged though is soon evaporated when she realises her mother is missing and their tour guide decides its best that she stays on the island to find her. Things then get strange with bodies on the beach, strange dance halls and just a sense our narrator has walked straight into a very different and dangerous dimension she may never leave. It is deliciously inexplicably dark.

There is another side to the anthology tales that feel they should be horror and yet often feel underneath reassuringly human. ‘The Embalmer’ in most cases would make you think of the beginnings of a serial killer as a young boy decides to cheer a girl up to send her the remains of a dead dog he’s tried to embalm. But Marshall actually expands this tale we see all the sides and this young girl’s tragic backstory and her own reaction to the dog is unexpected. A moment of strangeness can lift people out and restart lives but never quite how you’d expect. Similarly in ‘Caldera’ a young girl bewitched in Iceland feels like it should be horror’ story especially when we hear tales of how some women het kidnaped by monsters and yet this is different. Our main charter referred to simply as ‘The girl’ is carrying bruises from an academic setback and betrayal. She finds love in a woman who captures her heart and wants to spend time in front of a volcano that could explode at any moment. It’s a tale really instead of survival; moving on and healing and for me very uplifting. Slightly less uplifting but still never fully horror despite its moments is for me ‘Katalog’ – set in an unnamed authoritarian state where a man gives the story primarily of his father a renowned but occasionally banned artist. The power of art to power war and nationalism come into the debate as also our narrator’s father is shown to have quite a terrible relationship with his wife who we find was a more skilled artist and one who had set out to give a very different message to people. The one the State may try to suppress even more. A tale that explores art’s power and also toxic relationships.

Then we get tales that cross both of these streams ‘All Things Fall And Are Built Again’ is set in a nightmarish post-apocalyptic world where the devils walk the world, we follow one woman who finds if not love at least not loneliness in one devil’s arms. We get to glimpse her life before the world fell and she is haunted by many ghosts and yet there is a desire to move on – it may be to yet more disaster but our character decides it is time to try at least – less hope and more not yet being allowed to be beaten. In ‘The Other Tiger’ we get again an eastern european stye county and a tale of a village far from authority or the war (a running setting for many tales in this collection) here our narrator tells us her life story – an early marriage to man who vanished when hunting (which is for this village predictable) then our narrator become a widow; makes friends with her husband’s mistress and we then see the army descend on the place. The tale is beautifully strange – deserting soldier stay, become women, and get pregnant for reasons totally unexplained. Just possibly a monster was in plain sight. It’s a tale of life and all it’s strange moments of light and dark which very much is a feature of this collection.

Bookending this collection is ‘Survival Strategies’ that on the surface is our narrator who is exploring the career of a famous horror writer who resembles real life King of horror. No this is not an exposure of dark secrets but a tale really exploring horror. Set in the joyous background of 2016, Brexit, and the rise of Trump we have a world turning into what I would definitely say is horror and yet horror is something many of us seek out. It offers in some ways structure. The key tale her is how our mysterious author got his big break is the real story actually true. We get taken on our narrator’s journey; feeling their sense of dislocation from the world outside and we are learning a lot about their recent life in the process that may explain their attraction to this. Then the tale ends on a truly horrifying note of tension – we’ll never find the answer. Horrible things can just leap out at us without any warning – perhaps that’s why horror is sought to give us hope there will one day be some meaning. It’s a terrific tale to end on!

As you can probably gather, I absolutely loved The Gold Leaf Executions. Tales to beguile, unsettle, and most of all make you think. I love the idea of a collection I never at any time knew what type of story I’d get and where it would send me. If you enjoy strange ales that blur all the boundaries, then this is well worth exploring and I shall still be keeping an eye out for more from Marshall in the future. One of my favourite short story collections! Strongly recommended!