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A Bruise the Size and Shape of a Door Handle
- GenresShort StoriesQueerHorror
ebook
First published March 31, 2017
2 people are currently reading
46 people want to read
About the author
Daisy Johnson
28 books1,298 followersThe author of Sisters (2020) Everything Under (2018) and Fen (2016).
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Everything Under, her debut novel.
Winner of the Edgehill prize for Fen.
She has been longlisted for the Sunday Times Short Story Award and the New Angle Award for East Anglian writing. She was the winner of the Edge Hill award for a collection of short stories and the AM Heath Prize.
Reviews for Fen:
"Within these magical, ingenious stories lies all of the angst, horror and beauty of adolescence. A brilliant achievement." (Evie Wyld)
"There is big, dangerous vitality herein - this book marks the emergence of a great, stomping, wall-knocking talent" (Kevin Barry)
"Reading the stories brought the sense of being trapped in a room, slowly, but very surely, filling up with water. You think: this can't be happening. Meanwhile, hold your breath against the certainty it surely is. " Cynan Jones
"I've been working my way slowly through Fen and not wanting it to end - Daisy marries realism to the uncanny so well that the strangest turnings ring as truth. The echoes between stories give the collection a wonderfully satisfying cohesion, so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I cannot wait to see what she does next." (Sara Taylor, author of The Shore)
Reviews for Everything Under:
"Everything Under grabbed me from the first page and wouldn’t let me go. To read Daisy Johnson is to have that rare feeling of meeting an author you’ll read for the rest of your life." (Evie Wyld)
"Surprising, gorgeously written, and profoundly unsettling, this genderfluid retelling of Oedipus Rex will sink into your bones and stay there." (Carmen Maria Machado)
"Daisy Johnson is a genius." (Jeff VanderMeer)
"Hypnotic, disquieting and thrilling. A concoction of folklore, identity and belonging which sinks its fangs into the heart of you." (Irenosen Okojie)
"Everything Under seeped through to my bones. Reaching new depths hinted at in Fen, language and landscape turn strange, full of creeping horror and beauty. It is precise in its terror, and its tenderness. An ancient myth masterfully remade for our uncertain times. " (Kiran Millwood Hargrave)
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Everything Under, her debut novel.
Winner of the Edgehill prize for Fen.
She has been longlisted for the Sunday Times Short Story Award and the New Angle Award for East Anglian writing. She was the winner of the Edge Hill award for a collection of short stories and the AM Heath Prize.
Reviews for Fen:
"Within these magical, ingenious stories lies all of the angst, horror and beauty of adolescence. A brilliant achievement." (Evie Wyld)
"There is big, dangerous vitality herein - this book marks the emergence of a great, stomping, wall-knocking talent" (Kevin Barry)
"Reading the stories brought the sense of being trapped in a room, slowly, but very surely, filling up with water. You think: this can't be happening. Meanwhile, hold your breath against the certainty it surely is. " Cynan Jones
"I've been working my way slowly through Fen and not wanting it to end - Daisy marries realism to the uncanny so well that the strangest turnings ring as truth. The echoes between stories give the collection a wonderfully satisfying cohesion, so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I cannot wait to see what she does next." (Sara Taylor, author of The Shore)
Reviews for Everything Under:
"Everything Under grabbed me from the first page and wouldn’t let me go. To read Daisy Johnson is to have that rare feeling of meeting an author you’ll read for the rest of your life." (Evie Wyld)
"Surprising, gorgeously written, and profoundly unsettling, this genderfluid retelling of Oedipus Rex will sink into your bones and stay there." (Carmen Maria Machado)
"Daisy Johnson is a genius." (Jeff VanderMeer)
"Hypnotic, disquieting and thrilling. A concoction of folklore, identity and belonging which sinks its fangs into the heart of you." (Irenosen Okojie)
"Everything Under seeped through to my bones. Reaching new depths hinted at in Fen, language and landscape turn strange, full of creeping horror and beauty. It is precise in its terror, and its tenderness. An ancient myth masterfully remade for our uncertain times. " (Kiran Millwood Hargrave)
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 28, 2023
A lot of ppl not a fan of this story because it’s bizarre but thats what makes it good to me. I love an evil house!!
May 2, 2021
I'm making my way through a best contemporary short stories list, and I am left feeling honestly a bit gross after this one. It's like Bradbury's "The Veldt" smart house meets "Blue is the Warmest Color". Very strange and jarring, but the theme seems missing and the carnage unexplained, obsolete. I may be too dense and missed the point, but coupled with an unlikable protagonist, I just didn't find pleasure in reading this.
December 30, 2022
"Salma sat there and thought that there must be moments which were the beginnings of ends; that life must be a line of train carriages and she had just reached the jerk at the end of the first one."
Lots of excellent lines like this one but if I look at this as a typical romance, I don't see what the MC saw in the FMC, she hasn't done much to deserve the "love". But maybe I shouldn't apply logic.
Lots of excellent lines like this one but if I look at this as a typical romance, I don't see what the MC saw in the FMC, she hasn't done much to deserve the "love". But maybe I shouldn't apply logic.
May 17, 2020
The animalism of this house takes this narrative on a jealous twist in a plot that the reader may see the signs of, but pays no heed of until it's too late.
The only way to explain this short story is to highlight the carnivorous emotional swelling that occurs between architecture and exploratory need of mankind.
The only way to explain this short story is to highlight the carnivorous emotional swelling that occurs between architecture and exploratory need of mankind.
June 29, 2020
A strange atmospheric story. A teenage girl, first love and a jealous house! Wow!
March 6, 2021
It was ok. I've no idea what to make of it, to be honest. If I did, this may have been a 3/5.
June 27, 2023
This was one of those reads where you finish reading and go what did I just read. I went in knowing the smallest blurb but it was so good and it drew me into the story.
November 15, 2024
2.5 ⭐️
“The house did not have the human complication to worry that its love spun often into hate”
“The house did not have the human complication to worry that its love spun often into hate”
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July 30, 2023Its fantazia teengirl how has proplem betwen her parnet.to criative jeulous house and go wild with feeling.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews