Perfections

by Kirstyn McDermott

Published by Twelfth Planet Press

Two sisters. One wish. Unimaginable consequences.

Not all fairy tales are for children.

Perfections is the second novel from Australian writer, Kirstyn McDermott. Originally published electronic-only, it won the Aurealis Award for Best Horror Novel in 2013. Now reissued in print and ebook, it’s entirely worth your time to read it in whatever format you prefer.

It primarily tells the story of a family – two sisters, Antoinette and Jacqueline, and their cold, hard-hearted mother, Sally. It tells a lot more story than this, of course, but it’s one of those books that’s really hard to review without any spoilers. It’s best if every delicious morsel reveals itself as the author intended. Suffice to say that Antoinette discovers a magical ability within herself that greatly complicates everything around her, especially life for her art gallery assistant sister and distant mother.

This book is fantastic in the truest sense of the word, with the darkness of the fantasy beautifully drawn out by McDermott’s lyrical prose. She’s an excellent writer and I think she’s found a voice here far more developed than any of her other work. And the book is dark. It’s a slow and subtle horror, that reveals itself in layers. The first real bombshell hits around the halfway mark after a strong and engaging build-up and the hits keep coming after that. The characters are all beautifully realised, all the moreso for the things we learn about them as the book progresses.

If I have one complaint, it’s that McDermott shies away ever so slightly from the brutality of the end of the story. Events progress to an inevitable climax – at least, one of several potentially inevitable climaxes – yet we see it from a remove and in a kind of shorthand that hadn’t been in effect for the rest of the book, at least not for such key events. Regardless, this is an outstanding book that I can’t recommend highly enough.

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