Hi, its anon from last week who was asking about book recommendations. I loved the recommendations, especially Shirley Jackson, she's one of my favorite authors, I loved We Have Always Lived In The Castle, but my favorite book by her was The Sundial. The rest of the authors you recommended I have not read yet, but am excited to read!! I read all types of fiction, mainstream ones and classics HOWEVER my heart belongs to literacy fiction, specifically weird literary fiction. You mentioned that you have 1000 book recs, so if you have the time and have recs for Weird and Bizarre books of that nature, I'd love to hear.....
(btw have you read anything by Jenny Hval? She was my first introduction to weird literature.)
hi again anon!!!!!! yay shirley my girl! the sundial is fab and so, so funny. it's been many years since i've read that one so i should revisit one of these days. i read most of her novels in my teens but the only one i hadn't read (the bird's nest) i finally did a couple years ago and it was so so good. like, it's probably a very unrealistic depiction of dissociative identity disorder yet it's so very funny and dark and weird and charming.
i have not yet read jenny hval but she's been on my list for a while. i am somewhat a fan of her music (haven't gone too deep into it but "spells" is maybe one of my favorite songs ever?) thanks for the reminder, i should definitely read her!
as for weird and bizarre lit fiction, i do have plenty of recs, though i'm not really using the words in the sense of the "weird lit" genre as a formal movement or anything, just books that really are very weird and bizarre. almost all speculative fiction, magical realism, horror or a mix:
all works by the argentine writer mariana enriquez, but especially her huge novel our share of night. she has several short story collections out in english as well, and they're all good, but her novel is where it's at. it's a sprawling, multigenerational, multi-perspective spec/horror story that is essentially using ritualistic black magic secret societies as a metaphor for colonialism and exploitation by the ultra-rich in argentina. i really love how deeply interwoven latin american catholicism is to her magical system. content warning (i'm not going to give cw for most of these, assume they all have plenty of problematic stuff in them, but this one is especially egregiously disturbing & i never rec this book without saying this): this book, and all her work, contains really some unflinching and gruesome depictions of violence and especially violence against children.
keeping in the vein of argentine fiction, the 20th century author silvina ocampo wrote some great, surreal, weird short fiction, which you can most easily find in english in the collection thus were their faces
all works by the british-nigerian writer helen oyeyemi, but i especially love white is for witching, which is very weird both in its plot elements and its formal structure (it's about a racist haunted house!!!!) (helen oyeyemi was so deeply inspirational for me around 2017 that her non-traditional narrative structures were the insp. behind my very weird/self-indulgent dn fic "and then come mornings." and the nights-verse oc ruth adeyemi introduced in that fic is a sneaky lil nod to her)
all works by the british writer daisy johnson, but especially everything under. it's a modern transmasc retelling of oedipus involving a water monster. i recently recommended this to a friend who is writing a transmasc water creature book and was kinda nervous bc it's been 7 years since i read it and i'm not trans, but my friend said they were blown away by how much they loved it and related to it even though the author is (as far as i know?) a cis woman
although there is nothing speculative or non "realistic" about her work, i'd throw the incomparable polish-brazillian writer clarice lispector in with "weird lit" bc her syntax and thought processes are just so strange and surreal. she is honestly hard for a lot of people to read. i find her books both dense and at the same time magnetic. sometimes i don't know what the hell she's talking about and sometimes i'm like "that is the most brilliant thing i've ever read." a good place to start is the hour of the star, although i'd say the passion according to g.h. is more fundamental to my thinking/worldview. her short stories are also excellent and bewildering.
i do have more recs of this nature but no ~weird~ authors that i love as much as these, except for olga tokarczuk who i already went off about in my last recs posts (the WEIRDEST and the BEST). the gray house also definitely very much qualifies as weird lit
