SF Crossing the Gulf—Transformative Horror
Episode 24: Transformative Horror: “The Fruit of My Woman” by Han Kang (translated by Deborah Smith) and “The Good Husband” by Nathan Ballingrud
Ballingrud’s work is frightening, Kang’s is surreal, and both are disturbingly beautiful in their portrayal of how a person’s radical transformation can destabilize their marriage… or are they about how marriage can precipitate a radical transformation? Tune in to hear us tease out the nuances of these two parallel stories. You can read “The Fruit of My Woman” online before listening to the podcast, but for “The Good Husband” you’ll have to buy or borrow a book.
“The Fruit of My Woman”:
https://granta.com/the-fruit-of-my-woman/
“The Good Husband”, in North American Lake Monsters: Stories, Small Beer Press, 2013. Reprinted in The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 6; and in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2014.
Please heed the following content warnings:“The Good Husband”: Suicide, emotional abuse, sexual assault (dubious consent), body transformation, and animal death.“The Fruit of My Woman”: emotional abuse, body transformation.
Note: This podcast and all previous SF Crossing the Gulf episodes are available at this archive page.
Karen Lord is the award-winning, Barbadian author of Redemption in Indigo, The Best of All Possible Worlds and The Galaxy Game, and editor of the anthology New Worlds, Old Ways: Speculative Tales from the Caribbean. She is part of the writing team for seasons three and four of the serial fiction Tremontaine.
Karen Burnham is an electromagnetics engineer by way of vocation, and a book reviewer/critic by way of avocation. She has reviewed for venues such as Locus Magazine, Strange Horizons, and Cascadia Subduction Zone. Her book on Greg Egan came out from University of Illinois Press in 2014.
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