“Brushwork” casts its green shade over the rest of the collection, which is often more sci-fi than horror. Ultimately, Whiteley’s prognoses are painfully lucid but also hopeful in a way that feels realistic.

Mel is a likeable narrator, unsentimental and smart, and her tart observations slice through all the bullshit spouted by both young and old to justify their actions (or inaction). The corporation has specifically chosen to employ the old because they are easier to handle than the increasingly furious young, but Mel’s peace is shattered when a pack of terrorists take over the complex and attempt to run it themselves. It’s narrated by ex-teacher Mel, who after a “beast of a life” (in which the coming of a new Ice Age has been just one of the horrors) has now found a degree of peace living and working in a greenhouse of a massive faceless corporation that tends the last fruit and veg in the world (she does melons). The title story, “From The Neck Up”, “The Tears of a Building Surveyor, and Other Stories” and “Reflection, Refraction, Dispersion” all feature people trying to navigate the divide between generations, either within their families or society as a whole, though the theme is stated most forcefully in the opening novella “Brushwork”. But are anger and indifference all that today’s and tomorrow’s elders can expect from the young?Īliya Whiteley’s new collection at times seems almost designed to address this question. Meanwhile, it seems like the generation gap is yawning wider than ever as Millennials and Gen Z-ers continue to foot the bill for the bacchanalian consumer orgies of many Baby Boomers. But for all genders, to age is to become transparent, and even to become a ghost in your own life. This state of affairs is even worse if you’re talking about older women, although at least the blatant intersection of sexism and ageism does ensure that the subject gets a mention by online feminists from time to time. And while social media is full of folk pushing for greater representation of all kinds of minorities in fiction, the prejudice of ageism often seems to fly under the radar. In my last review I mentioned how hard it can be finding horror fiction featuring realistic portrayals of older people.

The beauty by aliya whiteley