Bog People: A Dark Exploration of Class Through Folk Horror
A compelling new anthology titled Bog People: A Working-Class Anthology of Folk Horror has emerged, featuring ten macabre stories set across England that delve deep into themes of class, hierarchy, and enduring inequality. Edited by Hollie Starling and published by Chatto & Windus at £18.99, this collection brings together some of the most accomplished names in the genre.
The Class Consciousness of Folk Horror
In her introduction, editor Hollie Starling establishes the collection's foundation by describing an ancient ritual in a Devon village where wealthy residents throw heated pennies from windows, watching those in need burn their fingers while scrambling for them. This powerful image encapsulates how folk horror naturally connects with class and hierarchy, where reverence for tradition often carries a dark edge.
Starling addresses the complexity of working-class self-identification, explaining that contributors were selected based on whether they grew up with low social, cultural and economic capital, regardless of their current circumstances. This approach ensures authentic storytelling from perspectives often marginalised in literature.
Notable Stories and Themes
The anthology opens with stories by AK Blakemore, Daniel Draper, and Jenn Ashworth, many beginning with funerals and loss. Draper's contribution features an eternal stew passed around a village from house to house, constantly bubbling as each family contributes meat. The stew takes on ritual significance, consumed by family heads during significant deaths before continuing its endless journey.
Emma Glass's story Carole follows a bereaved mother walking from a city courthouse to Stonehenge and onward to Dartmoor, experiencing days and nights passing like moments in a feverish landscape vision. The prose vividly describes her journey through moors and motorways, with trees that "reach and catch my shirt sleeves" and stars that "alive, alight, I wish you could see them."
Starling's own contribution, Yellowbelly, begins with urgent sex between a man and his AI companion, whom he resets for being too working-class and independent. The protagonist explicitly adjusts her regional settings and independent expression levels, highlighting how class bias extends even into artificial relationships.
Stylistic Innovation and Narrative Power
The collection excels in its winding path through horror, folklore, and gothic traditions, exploring families, oral history, and grief through highly stylised narratives. Many stories employ unconventional storytelling methods including interruptions, songs, church signs, receipts, and textual irregularity.
As Starling observes: "In folk horror the soil beneath our feet is seismically unstable. Our closest kin are unknowable and depraved, bound by unseen influences." The prose frequently uses italics to frame critical information and dialogue, removing it from normal human expression and emphasising the characters' connections to land, past, and national identity rather than solely human relationships.
Tom Benn's It Fair Give Me the Spikes builds to sensory overload with dense, tactile prose describing "an industrial town already at toil predawn, its factory stacks belching the new day black." Jenn Ashworth's The Hanging Stones delivers chilling simplicity with lines like "but the candles couldn't be returned to the box once they'd been lit."
Enduring Relevance and Minor Flaws
While the collection powerfully demonstrates folk horror's capacity to explore social inequality, the overarching theme of class sometimes recedes into the background, perhaps intentionally normalising its presence. Occasionally, the prose overexplains character intentions, draining subtext where reader intuition might have served better.
Despite these minor issues, Bog People stands as an urgent reminder that this genre must be nurtured. The anthology's title references iron age human sacrifice while serving a dual metaphorical function, commenting on inequality's enduring nature. These stories collectively explore life, death, birth, justice, superstition, and sorrow, asking fundamental questions about identity while characters crawl both from and toward the abyss.
The collection remains available through guardianbookshop.com, with potential delivery charges applying for those supporting The Guardian through purchases.
