(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Edelweiss. Content warning for violence.)

It’s a perfect temperature in here And everything is clean
Except the souls

This part is a fairy tale But only the ending of one

And when you finally
Get to the bottom of the glass You’ll find me
That terrible terror of being That’s me

***

Dorothea Lasky's THE SHINING is a feminist reimagining of the King novel and Kubrick film, in which she manages to transmogrify the already macabre into poetry that's sometimes more bizarre than the source material. Though it initially feels like we're thrust into the POV of Jack's wife Wendy, Lasky in fact places herself in the Overlook Hotel, perhaps as an unsuspecting guest who's terrorized by villains both worldly and supernatural. Through Lasky, the audience becomes the hotel's quarry.

Lasky's poetry is delightfully eerie and grotesque; my favorite line, perhaps, concerns the phalluses undulating on the green carpet running up and down the hotels stairs. It's been years since I've read or watched THE SHINING however, and I feel like I might have gotten more out of this collection if I'd refreshed my memory first. As it is, I suspect that many of the references went over my head. ( )