‘Gleeful storytelling’ in this month’s Short Stories: She’s Always Hungry by Eliza Clark,

She’s Always Hungry by Eliza Clark (Faber £9.99, 240pp)

Sly shocks and nasty surprises lie in wait for the readers of Eliza Clark’s unsettling, surreal stories. 

She’s the author of the novels Boy Parts and Penance, two provocative works that tackle gender, power, art and porn, and these 11 unnerving tales take a similarly tip-tilted view on a world fuelled by all kinds of ungovernable appetites.

Here, a tapeworm sets up residence in a young woman’s stomach much to her dieting delight (Build A Body Like Mine), a cannibalistic goddess aims to rule a post-apocalyptic world (The King) and a ferocious mermaid feasts on the flesh of hapless males in a matriarchal society in the title story.

There is gore aplenty, but also gleeful storytelling – Clark’s dark humour lends light to the monstrous shadows of her subject matter.

The History of Sound by Ben Shattuck (Swift Press £14.99, 320pp)

Music and memory ripple through these interconnected tales set in the past and present in New England. 

The book opens with the heartbreaking The History Of Sound (soon to be a film starring Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor) which recounts the travels of two young men, singer Lionel and composer David, as they cross the Maine countryside in search of folk songs after the First World War.

It wonderfully sets the tone for the 11 other stellar stories which head to 1696 wilderness with a religious leader and his naive followers (The Children Of New Eden); linger with August In The Forest, as a writer worries about his work; and finish with Origin Stories – an affecting coda to the story of David and Lionel and the people caught in their resonant orbit.

Weird Fiction: An Anthology by Various (Penguin £9.99, 208pp)

As the title of this collection suggests, there’s something unearthly afoot in these classic horror stories. Written at the turn of the 20th century, they’re brimful of hauntings and strange happenings.

Some are spine-tinglingly scary, but others head into B-movie territory, with overwrought writing and bad special effects – including the dull, doomy The Call Of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft.

Elsewhere, there’s heart-thudding tension in W. W. Jacobs’ The Monkey’s Paw, while M. R. James’s ever-chilling Oh, Whistle, And I’ll Come To You, My Lad delivers a droll blend of spookiness and satire.