She's currently the fiction editor at StoryBottle Co. Her work has appeared in Waxwing, F(r)iction, Iron Horse Literary Review, Tales to Terrify, and elsewhere. She is the author of In the Woods They Wait. When she's not reading and writing, she's spending time with birds: the ones outside and the four parrots that live in her house.
At CrimeReads South tagged five powerful horror novels in which "the animal characters are given agency." One title on the list:
Josh Malerman, PearlRead about the other novels on the list at CrimeReads.
Pigs are highly intelligent, social animals. Their eyes look so human, and they always seem to be smiling. It’s not that much of a stretch toimagine that they could be telepathic, which is exactly what Malerman explores in this high-concept slasher. The story opens with a boy named Jeff beheading a pig on his grandfather’s farm. He’s horrified when he realizes what he’s done, because it wasn’t his idea–Pearl made him do it.
Pearl is an intimidating hog who sits like a human, and has avoided the axe for years by manipulating the farmer’s thoughts. Now that he’s tested and realized the strength of his influence, Pearl begins a gruesome murder spree. Why? “Time to kill the people who killed the pigs.” It should come as no surprise that Malerman is a vegetarian.
--Marshal Zeringue
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