Fishnet

Fishnetscape
Navigator

Fishnet
by Kirstin Innes
Black & White Publishing
ISBN: 9781785302138

Just a quick shout of a review, really, to an interesting book I saw floating by on my Twitter timeline one day and looked interesting enough for me to have a look. Fishnet, by Kirsten Innes, appeared to be a thriller set in the world of sex workers. The reality is a little more complicated than that but it is certainly set in that milieu and, I’m pleased to say, it’s very positive of that particular profession, at least in the light of the respect, intelligence and choices of the women (and men) who work in that industry. It was obvious from the start that Innes had done her homework in bringing the characters in the book to life and portraying their struggles with both authority, in the form of a building company which is scheduled to knock down their sanctuary... where the sympathetic central protagonist of the book, Fiona, works... and, of course, the somehow still in this day and age attitudes of people outside their profession unable to understand it and behaving, often unintentionally but still as damagingly, in a derogatory manner to both the lifestyle and the people who adopt it.

The book is not really a thriller but it does have a mystery at its heart and many of the encounters that make up the story take the form of an amateur investigative procedural to give it a clothes horse, so to speak, to hang the main linen of the story on. Fiona’s sister has been missing for seven years and the last time she saw her was when she showed up at her door with a newborn babe, Beth... and then she ran away in the night, leaving Fiona and her parents to bring up the child without her.

And it’s a very interesting way of doing things as the writer takes six long sections and structures them under repeat mini titles to relocate either time shifts (flashbacks and so forth) or the central character’s dealings, split between her personal life on the investigation and her colleagues at the building company. So, for instance, chapter one will be made up of a repeat cycle of cross cuts between subsections labelled either CITY and VILLAGE, chapter two would be BACK and FORTH, chapter three would be PRIVATE and PUBLIC and so one. Further adding to these, almost John DoS Passos style (if I’m remembering my USA Trilogy correctly), are little bursts of information that interrupt the narrative as Fiona feeds her growing obsession with the girls’ sex worker blogs, her inklings of her own shifting sexuality and her growing sense of camaraderie with the girls and the seduction of the lifestyle in which they work.

And, yeah, I wasn’t sure at first because the lack of ‘hard thriller’ territory from the start kind of threw me but... it didn’t take that long for me to realise, for instance, that the central premise of the missing sister, pursued quite vigorously by the central character herself, was not what the book was about. Even though it also has a mild ‘espionage’ angle to something Fiona is doing at one point. But at the same time, despite my initial reservations, I found myself quite drawn into the world in which Fiona begins to explore. This is despite the main narrative refraining, for the most part, to be specifically sexualised and maintaining a more, solid observational approach to the various women that Fiona encounters on her own personal odyssey.

Now, it has to be said, there are a few clichés explored in the book. For example, I knew exactly where Fiona was going to end up as a person by the end of the novel and there were a few dramatic points in the book that some readers will definitely see coming. However, saying that, because of the unwillingness on the writer’s part to fall into a specific trap of allowing these various plot points to become the raison d'être of the actual scenes in which they turn up... almost in a laid back manner... it kind of doesn’t matter if you see certain story beats coming from afar because, it’s more about the writing, the structure and the attitude to various professions and people which are, in actual fact, the core of the novel. At least that's the way it seems to me.

What this means, in case you were wondering, is that I still found myself thoroughly gripped by the character of Fiona and her relationships with the various people, including her young ‘daughter’, more than anything else in the novel. So, yeah, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed Fishnet and, well, I’m sorry it’s such a short review this time but thank you so much to the author for portraying the majority of the sex workers here in a positive light... or perhaps, more importantly, in a respectful light (after all, some escorts can also be terrible human beings, as much as the next person). It was just nice to see that profession normalised and written about with a certain amount of knowledge about the subject (see Innes afterword about how she researched this one) and with a sympathetic eye. Glad I bought this one, for sure.

The Final Girl Support Group

Slash Fiction

The Final Girl
Support Group
by Grady Hendrix
Titan Books
ISBN: 9781789096064

The Final Girl Support Group is the latest novel (at time of writing) by Grady Hendrix, a writer who I quite liked already from his unique novel Horrorstör (reviewed by me here) and his book about the 1970s/80s horror paperback boom, Paperbacks From Hell (reviewed by me here). This one was first published in July of 2021 so I’m guessing it’s one of his pandemic projects. It’s also the best book I’ve read by him by far and, you know, I already liked his others somewhat.

For those who need their memory jogged, the ‘final girl’ is a term coined in the early 1990s by Carol J. Clover in her look at the horror and slasher genres... Men, Women and Chainsaws. I’ve never read it myself but it’s considered something of a classic of film and feminist theory and, yeah, I do have a copy sitting a few feet away on one of my huge ‘to be read’ piles so, you know, I’ll get to it one day. So, final girl is a referral to the last person standing in a slasher or horror movie, usually a woman (a term which I always argue somewhat implies that strong women do exist in the genre) after all the other victims are left behind for dead. The one who, if the ending isn’t too downbeat, kills (or appears to kill) the marauding killer in the last act... only for them to return to plague her in the sequel, if the box office is sufficient.

For this fabulous fiction, Hendrix gives us a tale about a regular group therapy session which unites the ‘final girls’ of real ‘fictional’ life slasher crimes, metatextually referring to some well known films in the process. The plot is that, after decades of meeting, the half a dozen or so members of the group all pretty much hate each other and bicker in the sessions constantly. They all have their own ways of dealing with thier personal trauma, including Lynette Tarkington, who tells the tale from a first person point of view. Lynette is a typical survivor, shut away in her heavily secured apartment, checking sight lines and weak spots on any situation which takes her out in the open, switching buses and taking complicated routes back to her apartment to make sure she’s not followed etc. A traumatised individual anyone would think was over compensating for her traumatic experiences but... totally justified as it turns out. Because, suddenly, one of the final girls is dead and a series of attacks seems to point to them all being targeted and, unfortunately, due to various narrative twists and turns which I certainly won’t spoil here, it’s up to Lynette to try and keep everyone safe, even though nobody actually trusts her a damn or even wants to be near her after certain things which go down in this novel.

And that’s all I’m saying about the plot other than... it was an absolute joy to read this one. The writer is obviously a connoisseur of American slasher films from the 1970s and onwards and it’s certainly a loving homage to the genre... at least it seems so to me. I will, as regular readers of this blog may remember, fully admit that I am not a big fan of the genre and have not seen very many slasher films... I’m much more into Italian giallo movies and will obsessively watch those any day but, I dunno, American slashers seem a bit too mean spirited and aesthetically challenged for my taste. But it doesn’t matter because, although I’m sure I missed a fair few of the cleverer references, I think I was certainly picking up on a fair few of them also. I might not have seen the films but I could work out when there was a veiled reference to Jason Vorhees, Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger or, indeed, Leatherface, for example.

Also, there’s a lot of humour in the book and Hendrix manages to perfectly match the very grim, gravitas of Lynette’s character with some laugh out loud moments. Not too mention some nice chapter title moments. The chapters are all called a variation or expansion of a regular slasher film style title you would get on a film franchise so, a few of them here by way of an example: The Final Girl Support Group 3D, The Final Girl Support Group’s New Nightmare, The Final Girl Support Group IX Final Girl VS Final Girl, FGSG X and The Final Girl Support Group XXI The Final Chapter II... and the list goes on for 24 chapters.

Punctuating each chapter is a fictional document to give a commentary from the ‘real’ fictional world of the characters by way of such things as a chat group screen display, the final girl support group notes by the doctor, articles in newspapers and magazines (Rue Morgue magazine is mentioned by name and it’s just possible some of the documentation is real, I would guess), the VHX box blurb from the fictional movie Gnomecoming and a police incident report form, etc. And it’s great stuff. Also, a chair... a chair which is either stationary or drawn in a falling motion in one direction or another... I’m not completely certain of the significance of the chair, to be honest but, it might be just a referral to Lynette’s mental state in various chapters as she tells the story, I guess. On the nice UK Titan Books hardback I read for this review, remove the dust jacket and you will find the same chair foil stamped on the cover.

And there are some nice touches to the characters too, such as the more James Bond than Bond precautions Lynette takes whenever she enters a new space or her only friend being a plant named Fine... short for Final Plant, after the few she had before she learned how to take care of them properly all died, leaving a Final Girl plant, so to speak.

And that’s about as much as I’m saying about The Final Girl Project other than, it’s an absolutely wonderful novel and I thoroughly recommend it for any fan of the genre and, even for non-fans of the genre such as myself. Oh, and I learned something too. Now I know what ACTH is and also what a hybristophile does. So I’ll try and use those two in sentences at some point I guess (oh, wait, I think I just did). Anyway, go read this one, it’s great.

Every Shade Of Black

Shade Runner

Every Shade Of Black
by Linzi Drew-Honey
Matador ISBN: 9781789013863

Every Shade Of Black is the third novel, that I know of, by former British glamour model and actress Linzi Drew (aka Linzi Drew-Honey). Among many other things she has done in her lifetime, she has published one autobiography, many years ago (and which really needs a sequel) called Try Everything Once Except Incest And Morris Dancing (which I reviewed here) and her fictional work Every Shade Of Blue (reviewed by me here), to which this is the sequel. Now this lady probably needs no introduction to UK people of a certain age but, if she does, I would urge you to read my previous reviews of her work first, to help fill you in a little on her famous background.

I bought her previous novel direct from her in a nice personalised copy at the Camden Film fair and, biding my time through the current pandemic, was able to remake my brief acquaintance with the lady at the recent Conway Hall Film Fair so, I'm glad I waited as I now have a signed copy of the sequel.

Every Shade Of Black continues the story of Suzanne (who I believe in my heart is, at the very least, partially based on the author herself), her new lover Sebastian, her soon to be ex-husband Edward, the treacherous young thing Tatiana (who stole Eddie away from Suzanne before the opening of the previous novel) and, just on the perimeter of their story and hovering like a slightly sleazier version of a Bond villain, appearing when required to make the drama of the book work at times, is Angelo, who kidnapped Suzanne in the previous book and who is concerned that one of his upper class sex addict, sex workers - namely Tatiana - is not back safely in the fold.

The story is a proper continuation of the various characters set up in the previous book and the majority of its fifty eight chapters, asides from an epilogue taking place in September of the same year, takes place between the 2nd and 17th of January, with each chapter once again including the specific date of the events ‘going down’ in that chapter and the name of one of the four characters. Each chapter is then told from the point of view of that specific character as Linzi takes us on a slow but deliberately paced journey to... well, okay, I’ll get there.

The story is fairly simple but, once again, this means the writer can take her time but also... much to the readers advantage... pepper it with liberal amounts of graphic, erotic content. However, it’s not just the copious amounts of sex which make this one an entertaining read but the general way the characters are explored. Sebastian especially is sketched out quite thoroughly and his personal story arc in this is the one which is mostly concentrated on. The majority of the novel takes place in the week of his birthday, when he and Suzanne take a trip to a five star hotel in Vancouver, with the now ‘fully employed again’ Suzanne doubling it up as a trip for her new job as a kind of hotel reviewer... and with Sebastian taking the opportunity to use it as a reason to finally catch up with the estranged father from his troubled childhood.

Once again, the characters are drawn as much by the small minutia of their lives in terms of the purchases they make, the clothes they wear, the perfumes they use and the wines they drink etc... as it is with everything else but, like the first novel which employs the same style of honing in on details to paint a broader picture, this works fairly effectively and at no point comes across as lazy writing (as it sometimes does with other authors who try to negotiate this kind of content).

As usual, every now and again (well, okay often) Linzi comes up with a very nice turn of phrase and one of them from early on in the novel in particular struck me, as she describes minor villainess (or perhaps expensive, nymphomaniac hedonist might be a better term rather than villainess) Tatiana as being... “Smug and contented like a pampered moggy...” Yeah, this made me smile because I knew exactly what she meant. She also, midst all the sexual shenanigans, comes up with a lovely description of snowfall, which heavily comments on the romanticism of the ice cold flakes (I know at least one lady who doesn’t share my love of snow but that’s because she lives in Switzerland, where it seems more of a bother when you’re living with it for long periods, I guess). But for UK based me, the sentence “The snow started to accelerate; a million wet kisses descending from the heavens as the sky darkened.” seemed pretty spot on to me.  I also now know what the word ‘sybaritic’ means so, yeah, glad my phone has a dictionary.

I mentioned the story was fairly simple but it’s also fairly effective in that there is a little twist which surprised me. I knew there had to be something the book was working towards in terms of the dramatic impetus of Sebastian’s character but I couldn’t for the life of me work out how. Then I discovered, the simple trick of using both the long form and shortened version of a name of a periphery character was the basis for a quite effective and somewhat serendipitous reveal of a plot point and, yeah, I really didn’t see that one coming at all... sometimes a simplistic structure is the best way to hide a secret and it certainly worked in this one. Hidden in plain sight, as it were.

There’s lots of nice little pop culture moments in the book too. I thought the reference to the Milk Tray Man might possibly date the novel against the purported age of the central characters but, after doing a quick Google on that, I found that those “All because the lady loved Milk Tray” style adverts were being made again. There’s also a nice, sneaky reference to the John Landis movie An American Werewolf In London, which of course featured Linzi as Brenda Bristols in the porn movie within the film, See You Next Wednesday.

My only real complaint... and this is probably not a criticism as such, is that the amount of sex the central four characters get up to each and every day is phenomenal. Maybe it’s just because I’m getting fairly long in the tooth now but the characters here put my stamina levels to shame... if I pushed things to these kinds of heights a certain body part would probably drop off me pretty quickly, I suspect.

All that aside though, Every Shade Of Black is another winner from the glamourous Linzi Drew-Honey who, like her central protagonist, has hair which is “a swath of golden sunshine” and, thankfully for this cynical, old reader... writing talents to match the binding. I definitely hope this isn’t the last thing she writes for sure and look forward to hearing more news about her as a writer in years to come.