Girls Against God

paperback, 240 pages

Published Oct. 6, 2020 by Verso Fiction.

ISBN:: 978-1-78873-895-8

(2 reviews)

At once a time-travelling horror story and a fugue-like feminist manifesto, this is a singular, genre-warping new novel from the author of the acclaimed Paradise Rot

“It’s 1992 and I’m the Gloomiest Child Queen.”

Welcome to 1990s Norway. White picket fences run in neat rows and Christian conservatism runs deep. But as the Artist considers her past, her practice and her hatred, things start stirring themselves up around her. In a corner of Oslo, a coven of witches begins cooking up some curses. A time-travelling Edvard Munch arrives in town to join a black metal band, closely pursued by the teenaged subject of his painting Puberty, who has murder on her mind. Meanwhile, out deep in the forest, a group of school girls get very lost and things get very strange. Awful things happen in aspic.

Jenny Hval’s latest novel is a radical fusion of feminist theory and experimental horror, …

At once a time-travelling horror story and a fugue-like feminist manifesto, this is a singular, genre-warping new novel from the author of the acclaimed Paradise Rot

“It’s 1992 and I’m the Gloomiest Child Queen.”

Welcome to 1990s Norway. White picket fences run in neat rows and Christian conservatism runs deep. But as the Artist considers her past, her practice and her hatred, things start stirring themselves up around her. In a corner of Oslo, a coven of witches begins cooking up some curses. A time-travelling Edvard Munch arrives in town to join a black metal band, closely pursued by the teenaged subject of his painting Puberty, who has murder on her mind. Meanwhile, out deep in the forest, a group of school girls get very lost and things get very strange. Awful things happen in aspic.

Jenny Hval’s latest novel is a radical fusion of feminist theory and experimental horror, and a unique treatise on magic, gender and art.

2 editions

christa reviewed Girls Against God by Jenny Hval

anger, sure, but also frustration

3 stars

I really struggled to get through this book despite the fact that it had some resonant parts and beautiful passages. Women. Hatred. Rebelling against god, because god surrounds you and is suffocating. Understanding that you've crafted yourself as something against, but not for. Music as community and lifeblood. But I couldn't get past the editing—it sagged for me in the middle, took me months to finish despite being fairly short, and I ended up getting angry at how hard it was for me to move from page to page. There were bits that were all in the same world, but never felt like they added up. I can't tell if the difficulty came from where I'm at reading/focus-wise, the expectation I had that it would be more linear, or just the strong need for a heavy editor. Probably all three.

imagineutopia

rated it

Dec. 4, 2022