Human Terrain. The Army acknowledges, through the lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq, that human geography is as important as any satellite map.
Human Terrain deals with female voices and working-class existences, ordinary lives transformed by loss and love. There's the mother working as cutman for her daughter in the boxing ring; the family who find themselves abandoned at the seaside; the gardener digging for love among the grass cuttings and weeds. Characters standing in a classroom, drinking in a pub, working the fryer in a fish and chip shop, or finding love in an ice warehouse, they all inhabit the collection. Stories full of dark humour and deep tenderness that depict the characters' struggles to understand their place in the world.
Praise for Human Terrain
In Emily Bullock's mystical collection, loss is evident. Life, thwarted dreams, family and its bonding and breaking, addictions, sins, despair. These are stories told through beautiful, emotional writing that veers between the mystical and the ordinary, the lyrical and the raw, the profane and the infinite. This is definitely one of the finest collections of the year and I can't wait to explore Emily Bullock's work.
—Amalia Gkavea, The Opinionated Reader
Here is a writer who has harnessed, embraced and extended the human spirit in multitude ways, harnessing each story's energy and going where it might take her.
Diversity and adversity run through this collection like welcome silver threads. We witness self destruction and self awareness in equal measure, but we are invited to view them through a three dimensional, empathetic lens.This is a sparkling collection with humanity at it's heart. Beautifully balanced and constructed, it is a perfect short story collection.
—Bookbound
Praise for Emily Bullock
Startlingly original and poetic - Bullock combines horror and brutality with unexpected moments of tenderness.
—The Observer, on Inside the Beautiful Inside
The backdrop of postwar London is splendidly done - all crusted soot and swirling fog - and the boxing scenes have a terrific vigour and excitement.
—The Times, on The Longest Fight
Emily Bullock's debut, The Longest Fight, [is] a fine addition to the canon of boxing literature... And Bullock too, is alert to boxing's nobility, as well as its barbarity, in this grittily impressive first novel.
—Independent on Sunday, on The Longest Fight
