So, how do I even start to review this brilliant story? The horror? The exquisite prose poetry? The fox spirit of Chinese and Asian legend? The women of the story whose brutal lives drive the horror?
Let’s go with the exquisite prose and see where it takes us…
Reading this book, one line stood out, because it fit so beautifully with the rest of the text. So much so, I was surprised it didn’t appear earlier.
“Some things you knew already. Some things you knew before you were born; they were revealed to you in the rhythm of your mother’s heartbeat and the echoes of her sighs.”
Who knew that grinding expectation and hopeless despair, the death of dreams
before they are even born, could be written with such poetry? And it builds right into the horror of the lives the fox spirit samples. Quiet despair and brutal savagery. Women who have to endure more than any person should ever bear. (I won’t go into them, but there’s a reason various hotlines are written at the end of the book.)
The fox spirit is a lot. Bold, brave, sneaky, protective, and folding in so much mythology while being its own creature. And while my knowledge of fox spirit mythology is very limited, I still think those mythological bones helped bring the story a depth beyond the words—just like the skulls that represented real lives in the story. Mythology connecting with real-life horror is more than mesmerising.
An exquisitely written prose poetry novel not for the fainthearted, and yet still a must read — even for my faint-hearted soul. Delve into the depths of despair and come out of the other side with just a little hope.
A total work of art. Enjoy your nine lives.
A.J. Ponder
P.S. Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud is available from Cuba Press
P.P.S More about Lee Murray: Lee Murray’s Books, Five Questions with Lee Murray , Lee Murray’s Prime Minister’s Award for Literary achievement, Lee Murray’s bio.