Freakslaw
Published on 24. April 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
368 pages
978-1-80499-246-3 (ISBN)
Description
Discover the dazzling new queer literary horror novel about chosen family and the risks it takes to become the person you want to be.
'The glittery punk offspring of Katherine Dunn's Geek Love and Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus.' Chelsea G. Summers, author of A Certain Hunger
A travelling funfair of seductive troublemakers arrive in a repressed Scottish town. What could possibly go wrong?
It's the summer of '97 and the Scottish town of Pitlaw is itching for change.
Enter the Freakslaw - a travelling funfair populated by deviant queers, a contortionist witch, the most powerful fortune teller, and other architects of mayhem. It doesn't take long for the Freakslaw folk to infiltrate Pitlaw's grey world, where the town's teenagers - none more so than Ruth and Derek - are seduced by neon charms and the possibility of escape.
But beneath it all, these newcomers are harbouring a darker desire: revenge.
And as tensions reach fever pitch between the stoic locals and the dazzling intruders, a violence that's been simmering for centuries is about to be unleashed...
Praise for Freakslaw:
'A transgressive, inventive dark fantasy' Guardian
'Crackling with desire, hedonism, angst, violence and sex' Heat
'As frightening as it is seductive' Herald
'I'd kill to run away with this circus' Michelle Tea, author of Modern Tarot
'A queer punk masterpiece' Leon Craig, author of Parallel Hells
'A strong spiritual successor to Katherine Dunn's Geek Love' Heather Parry, author of Orpheus Builds a Girl
'The glittery punk offspring of Katherine Dunn's Geek Love and Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus.' Chelsea G. Summers, author of A Certain Hunger
A travelling funfair of seductive troublemakers arrive in a repressed Scottish town. What could possibly go wrong?
It's the summer of '97 and the Scottish town of Pitlaw is itching for change.
Enter the Freakslaw - a travelling funfair populated by deviant queers, a contortionist witch, the most powerful fortune teller, and other architects of mayhem. It doesn't take long for the Freakslaw folk to infiltrate Pitlaw's grey world, where the town's teenagers - none more so than Ruth and Derek - are seduced by neon charms and the possibility of escape.
But beneath it all, these newcomers are harbouring a darker desire: revenge.
And as tensions reach fever pitch between the stoic locals and the dazzling intruders, a violence that's been simmering for centuries is about to be unleashed...
Praise for Freakslaw:
'A transgressive, inventive dark fantasy' Guardian
'Crackling with desire, hedonism, angst, violence and sex' Heat
'As frightening as it is seductive' Herald
'I'd kill to run away with this circus' Michelle Tea, author of Modern Tarot
'A queer punk masterpiece' Leon Craig, author of Parallel Hells
'A strong spiritual successor to Katherine Dunn's Geek Love' Heather Parry, author of Orpheus Builds a Girl
Reviews / Votes
A transgressive, inventive dark fantasy with believably complex characters. * Guardian * Crackling with desire, hedonism, angst, violence and sex, this is a vibrant and wildly entertaining read. * Heat * The zany narrative races along, stuffed with chaos, magic and fabulously unique characters. It's brilliant on how badly society treats its 'freaks'. Mad and fun. * Daily Mail * If it feels as if her debut [...] is one she was born to write, then good for her. She succeeds magnificently, leaning into every queer punk excess and fantastical delight . . . A celebration of the marginalised, reframing otherness as a source of great vitality and power. * Observer * As frightening as it is seductive, this tale of a tightly knit band of outsiders pitting themselves against "that pulsing Calvinist heart" makes for a dark but thrillingly vibrant read. * Herald * Freakslaw is nonstop freaky, witchy, outlaw, glamour misfit fantasy - adventure fantasy, sex fantasy, revenge fantasy. Geek Love meets American Horror Story meets The Craft meets John Waters. I'd kill to run away with this circus. * Michelle Tea, author of Modern Tarot * A shimmering blade of a book. Every sentence is honed for high delight - a captivating cast of characters, dazzling language, and so funny - but there's a smart and dangerous bite to all the campy, glittery glory. Freakslaw makes space for feminist, queer anger... and shows it a great time. We've never been so happy to roll up, roll up. * Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta, authors of The View Was Exhausting * Delightful, delirious and transgressive, this book is the wildest of carnival rides, an open-mouthed kiss with the lingering taste of candyfloss and smoke. Jane Flett has created a queer punk masterpiece and we should all be so lucky to have our lives turned upside down by a visit to the Freakslaw. * Leon Craig, author of Parallel Hells * Freakslaw is a cornucopia of the carnivalesque, where freaks are fabulous and weird is wonderful. Flett's sumptuously technicolour prose is as startlingly original as it is compulsively moreish. * Carole Hailey, author of The Silence Project * Part block party, part call to arms, Freakslaw is almost a new kind of genre. Wild, raunchy, brutal - a madcap funhouse with heart. * Liska Jacobs, author of The Pink Hotel *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Transworld Publishers Ltd
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 194 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
258 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-80499-246-3 (9781804992463)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
06/2024
Transworld Digital
€2.99
Available for download
Person
Jane Flett is a Scottish writer who lives in Berlin. Her fiction has been commissioned for BBC Radio 4, featured in Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, Highly Commended in the Bridport Prize and performed at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. She's a recipient of the Scottish Book Trust New Writer Award, the New Orleans Writing Residency and the Berlin Senate Stipend for non-German literature. Freakslaw is her first novel.