Ainslie Hogarth made a name for herself with Motherthing, a high-concept horror story about a woman battling her malignant mother-in-law, and with her new novel Normal Women, she looks set to further carve out her niche of feminist, pitch-black comedic horror.
Normal Women follows Dani, a new mother who feels adrift in her life, and discovers the Temple, a mysterious organisation that seems committed to helping menfolk achieve their very best – even if that involves sex work. When the leader of the Temple goes missing, Dani tasks herself with finding out what happened.
There’s a slick horror to Hogarth’s writing – not dissimilar to Motherthing – with the opening pages dedicated to what can only perhaps be described as gynaeological gore, and a book cover comprising a Fifties-era housewife with a glazed gaze and possibly blood (or ketchup) on her sweater. It’s not as out-and-out horrific as Motherhing perhaps (no spectral mothers, for one), but Normal Women dives deep into the realm of stifling, choking, domestic isolation, creating something akin to a small-town horror story.
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Without spoiling the machinations of Normal Women too much, it operates as an aspiring mystery (although this element gets lost in the overly-involved plot), and as an exploration in bodily autonomy, particularly with regards to sex work and the complicated feelings surrounding it. Hogarth succeeds more than she fails in this regard, with a thorny examination of female labour and unfair expectations when it comes to gender and work.
While its messiness sometimes threatens to derail the book’s plot, Normal Women is still a pleasingly unsettling examination of sex, desire, the modern attitude towards work, and about what boundaries we’re willing to across, and another notch to Hogarth’s belt.
Normal Women is out on 4th January from Atlantic Books.
