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Dark Spring

by: Unica Zurn

Publisher: Exact Change (1970)

$13.95

Staff Pick by comrade: rats alice

Written in a language that is both straightfoward and enigmatic, this novella creates a dream-like fairytale from the author's distorted childhood. It is grotesque and disarming in the way it describes and explores her experiences of sexual abuse and neglect. The author described her book as "the erotic life of a little girl based on my own childhood". Not at all an emotionally easy read, but a book that is beautiful for how it is unique and true and strange. Some of the best surrealistic fiction for how it exposes and explores the unconscious and concealed parts of a life.