Salt Slow

Salt Slow is a collection of short stories by Julia Armfield that looks at women's lives in the present day through what happens to their bodies. Each story takes an ordinary pressure and lets it turn strange.

In one, the sleep of a city's residents detaches from them, much as Peter Pan's shadow does, and the city stops being able to rest. In another, a teenager reaches puberty and her body changes in ways her classmates' bodies do not. Fans who follow a popular band on tour become something monstrous as the band's following grows.

Two step-sisters, one a girl and one a wolf, grow dangerously close after their parents remarry. In an apocalyptic setting, a pregnant woman starts to understand that the creature inside her is not what she expected.

The stories mix horror, science fiction, mythology and feminist concerns. The tone is dark and unsettling, with the uncanny set against recognisable modern life. The book is a short story collection, so each piece stands alone and can be read in turn. Julia Armfield won the White Review Short Story Prize, and this collection was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award.