The Revenants

“In the settlement of Death, the corpse isn’t buried for some time as the body artist needs to mould it for the mourning display […] Rarely acknowledged is how closely a coffin maker must follow the work of the embalming artist. Once the presentable corpse is fixed, the body cannot be returned to the usual mind-me-tits pose of a regular burial (not that anyone in Death would desire anything so missionary), and so the coffin is never the traditional shape.

One recent funeral was remarkable. Eavan Dermoût in death eschewed the traditional horror motif and elected for a perfect foetal shape for her last journey. They’d to break her bones to get her in position, but in the end she rested upright like a wheel, naked and hairless. Behind her the coffin was almost circular, like a coracle with a pot lid—.”

The Revenants is a return to the “eerie mental eavesdropping” of The Settlements, and although not in any way a sequel, the new book listens to the voices of the peninsula, following meandering tales according to a dream logic and endlessly inventive—