The father in the story “All the Other Demons” is an exaggerated version of my own dad, a weird, verbose man who loved to spellbind his children with strange tales and arcane lore, patchwork narratives drawn from whatever sources he needed to hold our imaginations captive. As I grew older and started performing my own version of the charismatic raconteur, my father said I suffered from a “hyperbolic condition,” a genetically inherited illness enhanced by a steady diet of tall tales. By the time I started writing poetry in high school, I was possessed with the power of language, and my main goal was to enchant readers with streams of words—never mind the subject matter.
― Julia Elliott, Interview, Countercraft
What booksellers are saying about Hellions
- Monstrosities, oddities, and curiosities abound in the gothic, folklore infused world of Julia Elliot’s Hellions. Elliot’s short stories encapsulate the ordinary and the magical, the wicked and the divine, full of characters searching for something to bring them meaning. From a young woman enraptured with her college professor, to medieval nuns avoiding the plague by grasping for pleasures, to a delivery driver who finds solace in a hidden, perhaps phantasmic, radio station while driving, these characters encounter the otherworldly and are forever changed by their experience. These stories are dark and weird and precisely the kind of southern gothic I yearn for after spending years in the forests, creeks, and haunting architecture of Middle Georgia.
― Mikey LaFave, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia | BUY
- I’ve waited ten years for this new collection by Julia Elliott! And while it’s been a very good decade for weird short stories, there’s nothing quite like the viscera-soaked Southern Gothic swamp magic by this singular master of the form. These stories wear the rustic costumes of folklore and fairy tales while boldly exploring our toxic modern world and the monstrous, beautiful dualities within us all.
― Tony Peltier, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina | BUY
- This fantastical collection of short stories mixes the twisted hallmarks of Southern Gothic literature with the sweet quirkiness of an eco-witch. Descriptions of bewitching nature both feral and homely make this collection a wild, wild good time.
― Joshua Lambie, Underground Books in Carrollton, Georgia | BUY
About Julia Elliott
Julia Elliott is the author of the story collection The Wilds, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and the novel The New and Improved Romie Futch (both from Tin House). Her work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Tin House, Conjunctions, and the New York Times. She has won a Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award, and her stories have been anthologized in Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses. She teaches English and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of South Carolina and lives in Columbia with her husband, daughter, and five hens.
