Blair's Reviews > You Will Grow Into Them

You Will Grow Into Them is a surprising and unpredictable collection of short stories, each touching on something strange, supernatural, or inexplicable. They range from seemingly ordinary situations with a touch of darkness (‘Passion Play’, ‘Songs Like They Used to Play’) to the more explicitly fantastical (‘Her First Harvest’ is set in a world where people grow crops of mushrooms on their backs; ‘We All Need Somewhere to Hide’ features demon-slayers and skin-suits), while some mix the two (‘Dogsbody’ is grittily realistic, except for the fact that a chunk of the population are werewolves).

My unequivocal favourite was ‘Songs Like They Used to Play’. It's one of those stories packed with so much brilliant detail and so many original ideas, you wonder how on earth someone could have managed to come up with it. When I attempted to summarise the plot, I found myself writing several paragraphs – not because there’s too much going on, but because it manages the genius trick of weaving together numerous levels of complicated backstory as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. By the time I reached the weird/intriguing element, I had such a strong sense of Tom’s character that I would’ve followed him anywhere. And what a rich journey Devlin takes him on: from an anachronistic childhood spent in TV-set mock-ups of earlier decades, to an odd little York guesthouse with a secret nightclub tucked away at the end of a hidden corridor. Dislocation, regret, dread; a simmering, disquieting atmosphere. Easily among the best short stories I’ve read all year.

‘Passion Play’ opens the book, and it makes a fantastic first impression. The narrator is a Catholic schoolgirl whose classmate, Cathy McCullough, has disappeared. The two girls were assumed to be ‘best friends’ by adults; the truth is more complicated than that (their uneasy dynamic made me think of the narrator and Harriet in Harriet Said...). What is certain is that Cathy had become obsessed with a person – or symbol? – the girls noticed in some church paintings, referred to as ‘the cross-hatch man’. This small and indistinct figure exerts a chilling influence. A beautifully unnerving story with shades of M.R. James, especially ‘Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook’.

Though I didn’t like it as much as ‘Songs’, ‘Dogsbody’ similarly uses realism to ground its fantasy world. Those afflicted by what’s become known as ‘Lunar Proximity Syndrome’ are regarded with suspicion, and the opening scene finds the narrator, Gil, convinced he’s been rejected for a job because of his status. So being a (one-time) werewolf turns out to be a rather effective metaphor for losing one’s place on the career ladder and, consequently, experiencing downward social mobility. There’s violence beneath the surface as Gil struggles with being perceived differently.

In the historical tale ‘Two Brothers’, William is disappointed to find his brother Stephen behaving differently after he returns from boarding school. At first, it seems the new-found distance between them is simply an inevitable part of growing up. But then William meets a strange boy in the woods. I was slowly sucked into this story and, by the end, I wanted more. It reminded me of two enigmatic novels: The Job of the Wasp and The Children’s Home.

Some of the stories – including ‘Passion Play’ and ‘Two Brothers’, but particularly ‘Her First Harvest’ – are beautifully crafted yet seem to end before the most important moment comes. Similarly, I loved the setup of ‘The Bridge’, in which a couple discover a detailed model of their town in the attic of their new home, but found the resolution anticlimactic.

On the other hand, ‘Breadcrumbs’ has one of the clearest resolutions, but takes a step too far into fantasy; it also has the most offputting protagonist in the book, making it my least favourite overall. ‘We All Need Somewhere to Hide’ comes the closest to a conventional horror narrative, with its hard-as-nails heroine and pulpy plot.

‘The Last Meal He Ate Before She Killed Him’ is a dour drama in which a poisoner's punishment is to re-enact the night of her crime for groups of voyeurs. It‘s set within an interesting, oppressive world – perhaps an alternate history? – which I’d have liked to read more about.

The closing story, ‘The End of Hope Street’, feels like a sort of experimental exercise in cramming together and repeating as many banal details as possible. My eyes began to glaze over after a while. It didn’t work for me.

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