Slights by Kaaron Warren

by Eve Hermansson | 4:01 am 23/06/2010

Publisher: Angry Robot 2/5

Kaaron Warren’s dark horror Slights left me feeling disturbed and more than a little sick to my stomach. Yet I think (or, at least, I hope) that this was the author's intent: to generate unease with her perverse plot, her monstrous characters, and her nightmarish imagery. In this first person narrative, Stevie – a sociopathic female deviant – tells us of the torments that repeatedly await her during a series of near-death experiences. Initially, she is terrified upon finding herself transported to a cold, dark room where she is repeatedly ravaged, penetrated and literally devoured by people against whom, in life, she has committed slights, both grave and trivial. However, gradually she begins to develop an obsession with these episodes, and resolves to learn whether other people suffer a similar fate upon their demise. Such are the origins of a female serial killer. 

The book is sexy and vicious at an R-18 level. I would have expected the author to be a tattooed, chain-smoking, gothic-pixie sadist. In actual fact, she is a middle-aged, homely-looking suburban mother, with the most sinister of literary fancies. Unfortunately, it is near impossible to empathise with her lead character, who is emotionally damaged to the point of inhumanity. Destructive, wanton, callous, and lacking in basic personal hygiene, Stevie is the agent of her own misery, deliberately sabotaging her interpersonal relationships and demonstrating her contempt for normal social decency. 

I can at least commend the author for her superior use of imagery. Warren engages all the senses, using familiar points of reference – the taste of sour milk, the feeling of teeth on flesh, etc. – to evoke a strong visceral response in the reader. A few choice excerpts illustrate Warren’s conceit of purgatory: “She grabbed my tongue ... Her fingers tasted of piss and dirt … my nostrils were full of shit and mothballs.” “I am naked on that bed … A stranger lolls her tongue out. She is lapping at my back, taking off the first layer of skin.” If Warren's dark room is a genuine depiction of the afterlife, we are in for a rough time. 

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