I’ve been reading horror, well, almost as long as I’ve been reading chapter books. I’m not as widely read as many of my peers, but I’m working to catch up. And, as this February is the tenth Women in Horror Month, I could not think of a better way to kick things off than with reviewing a novel by a new-to-me horror writer, one Gwendolyn Kiste. Are you a fan of feminist fiction? Do you appreciate literary horror? Do you want to support small, independent publishers? I just might have the book for you.
The Rust Maidens (2018)
Written by: Gwendolyn Kiste
Genre: Horror
Pages: 250 (Paperback)
Publisher: JournalStone
Why I Chose It: I chose to read it because, after it came in TwitterStone‘s December book box, I couldn’t stop picking it up and just looking at it. That cover is haunting, and the premise wormed its way into my mind. I chose to review it because books from small presses don’t get nearly enough attention. This one more than deserves it.
The premise:
Something’s happening to the girls on Denton Street.
It’s the summer of 1980 in Cleveland, Ohio, and Phoebe Shaw and her best friend Jacqueline have just graduated high school, only to confront an ugly, uncertain future. Across the city, abandoned factories populate the skyline; meanwhile at the shore, one strong spark, and the Cuyahoga River might catch fire. But none of that compares to what’s happening in their own west side neighborhood. The girls Phoebe and Jacqueline have grown up with are changing. It starts with footprints of dark water on the sidewalk. Then, one by one, the girls’ bodies wither away, their fingernails turning to broken glass, and their bones exposed like corroded metal beneath their flesh.
As rumors spread about the grotesque transformations, soon everyone from nosy tourists to clinic doctors and government men start arriving on Denton Street, eager to catch sight of “the Rust Maidens” in metamorphosis. But even with all the onlookers, nobody can explain what’s happening or why—except perhaps the Rust Maidens themselves. Whispering in secret, they know more than they’re telling, and Phoebe realizes her former friends are quietly preparing for something that will tear their neighborhood apart.
Alternating between past and present, Phoebe struggles to unravel the mystery of the Rust Maidens—and her own unwitting role in the transformations—before she loses everything she’s held dear: her home, her best friend, and even perhaps her own body.
No spoilers.
Full disclosure: I wouldn’t have read this book, or even known that it existed, if it hadn’t literally showed up on my doorstep. I am so glad that it did. I couldn’t stop reading this novel. I was consumed by the story and devoured it over the course of a little more than a single day, with inconvenient breaks for sleep and work. I’ve only just finished it, but I have a feeling that I’m going to be thinking about this story for a while. What was it, exactly, that drew me so entirely in?
It’s hard to pinpoint one single thing. A definite high point for me was Kiste’s beautifully realistic depiction of what it feels like to be a teenage girl with a best friend that you would do literally anything for. My own high school best friend moved away quite suddenly a few short weeks after graduation, and I felt as if my world had ended. To say that I related to Phoebe’s experience in losing her best friend and cousin, Jacqueline, is a bit of an understatement.
Then there’s the mysterious condition of the Rust Maidens themselves. Calling it an illness seems wrong — the girls aren’t sick, exactly. It goes beyond that. This is a literal, horrifying transformation. I wanted, desperately, to know why. What was causing five seemingly healthy girls to literally turn to creatures of rusted steel and glass?
I have a theory (and an otherwise unused literature degree, indulge me). The fact that Phoebe remains untouched stands out. Unlike the Rust Maidens, she has a dream and a plan to pursue it. She’s passionate about biology, specifically entomology, and has been accepted to college. She’s determined to avoid her mother’s life of homemaking — she even wonders briefly if she’s ever heard her mother talk about what she wanted from life before marrying Phoebe’s father. If the other girls from Denton Street have interests of their own, they’re either completely stifled (as with Violet, the would-be photographer whose parents forbade her to attend art school) or don’t stand out enough to even rate a mention.
Much is made of Phoebe being “different” from her peers. Perhaps her passions and future goals, the things that make her stand out from the pack, save her from being consumed and transformed. The Rust Maidens themselves are almost a cautionary tale: if you do not care enough, or possess the bravery to pursue your own path, then you are in danger of losing yourself in some fashion. Perhaps even if you do have that bravery, if you allow yourself to become derailed by circumstance, (as with Dawn, the teenage mother who never got more than a few minutes with her baby daughter before succumbing to the rust) you face the same perils.
When Phoebe returns to Denton Street as an adult, she meets a young woman named Quinn. To Phoebe’s absolute horror, she discovers that Quinn is sporting an injury identical to the ones that the original Rust Maidens had before they transformed from ordinary teenage girls into otherworldly beings. Why is this significant? Quinn seems just as lost and directionless as the Rust Maidens were before they began to change. Is she destined to become the newest Maiden?
Kiste’s prose is lovely without becoming too lush. While this is most definitely a horror novel, it’s more of a quiet terror than a gratuitous scare-fest. I counted exactly one jump scare. Body horror isn’t something that I’ve experienced a great deal of, but based on my research, I would call this a tasteful example of the sub genre. There are descriptions of what is happening to the Rust Maidens’ bodies, and what their transformations look like, but it isn’t over the top or written simply for the shock value of it all. Nevertheless, if this kind of thing truly disturbs you, this may not be the book for you.
In Conclusion: I am very pleased that this book dropped into my life. It’s a feminist literary horror novel that would appeal to fans of Paul Tremblay. If you’re a fan of his work, you should most certainly take a look at Gwendolyn Kiste. This is her first full-length novel, and I look forward to seeing what she produces in the future (not to mention catching up on her existing shorter works that are already available).
(Featured image by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash)
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