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The Night Alphabet
'Joelle Taylor has a Midas touch with words' Diana Souhami
The tattoo was a reclamation, a flag we mounted in the centre of our own landscape.
A woman walks into a tattoo parlour. But this is no ordinary woman, and this is Hackney in 2233.
Jones' body is covered in tattoos but she wants to add one final inking to her gallery - a thin line of ink mixed with blood that connects her body art together, creating a unique map. As the two artists set to work, Jones tells them the story behind each tattoo. As Jones is no ordinary woman, these are no ordinary tattoos: each one represents a doorway to a life Jones fell into, a 'remembering'. Some of these lives were in the past, others in the future, some are sideways, but each of them connects Jones to the two tattoo artists in some way, though they are unaware of it.
We visit the dystopian cities of the Quiet Men, the coal mines of 19th century Lancashire, join a gang of vigilante sex workers, enter the world of an INCEL murderer, haunt the old Maryville gay bar, and uncover plans to genetically modify female children. Each of the stories brings us closer to Jones' truth, and how her life is intricately interwoven with that of the women tattooing her body.
Set across geographies and timespans, The Night Alphabet is a dazzlingly bold and original work, a deep investigation into human nature and violence against women.
The tattoo was a reclamation, a flag we mounted in the centre of our own landscape.
A woman walks into a tattoo parlour. But this is no ordinary woman, and this is Hackney in 2233.
Jones' body is covered in tattoos but she wants to add one final inking to her gallery - a thin line of ink mixed with blood that connects her body art together, creating a unique map. As the two artists set to work, Jones tells them the story behind each tattoo. As Jones is no ordinary woman, these are no ordinary tattoos: each one represents a doorway to a life Jones fell into, a 'remembering'. Some of these lives were in the past, others in the future, some are sideways, but each of them connects Jones to the two tattoo artists in some way, though they are unaware of it.
We visit the dystopian cities of the Quiet Men, the coal mines of 19th century Lancashire, join a gang of vigilante sex workers, enter the world of an INCEL murderer, haunt the old Maryville gay bar, and uncover plans to genetically modify female children. Each of the stories brings us closer to Jones' truth, and how her life is intricately interwoven with that of the women tattooing her body.
Set across geographies and timespans, The Night Alphabet is a dazzlingly bold and original work, a deep investigation into human nature and violence against women.
432 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 10, 2025
88 people are currently reading
3476 people want to read
About the author
Joelle Taylor
21 books76 followersJoelle Taylor is an award-winning poet, playwright, author, and editor.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 121 reviews
September 13, 2025
Different countries grow different tongues, but the men all speak the same language, mother said. They all speak the night alphabet.
My head cannot understand them. My body understands perfectly.
The Night Alphabet by Joelle Taylor is a strikingly original work, written in poetic and powerful prose, what the author has described as "a sort of weird sci-Fi I’m calling queer futurism."
She held my gaze like it was something injured, twitch-eye and mad with story.
It opens with our narrator, Jones, undergoing some sort of transformative time-travel, being in both 2223 but simultaneously a simalcrum of Hackney, 1996:
I know where I am. Back. This is the last time; it has to be.
I land in myself, running across a trim playing field flanked by holo-graphic London plane trees and analogue tower blocks. The grass beneath my feet is well behaved. Here again. Hackney MunicoPark. The weather programmers have calculated this day to always be the start of Spring here. The children in the overlooking tower blocks might not be able to afford the daily entrance fee to the playground, but they still catch the artificial breezes from it for free, gathered in blue plastic bags. I have grown to love them.
At the exit, a soft tide of tattoos materialises across each of my arms. Without looking, I know the tattoos have begun to find themselves again across my body, as though called. The anchor, the fly and the cat, the great net across my belly, the soundwave, the mermaid, the word `mother' in a banner, the map of me. Perhaps I look like a gallery rather than a tattooed woman. Perhaps I am a hanged woman, something to be curious about on Sunday afternoons. Maybe each of the tattoos is a still in the film reel of my existence, my skin a cinema screen.
[...]
Nearer to Winter now, I bow my head against insistent November rains, the kind that nag the body and worry the heart. Wolves of wind chase my silhouette up the street. The weather programmers are all notorious sadists. Ahead of me the white sun is a baby's head retreating into the womb, and who could blame her? The evening is coming and if I am right, as sometimes I am, it may even come on time. It is strange how the past is always slightly ahead of us, standing on a street corner smoking a cigarette, waiting for us to catch up with what has already happened. I know now that when we leave home, it follows us.
There she enters a tattoo parlour run by two women, Cass and a teenager called Small, and asks them to make one last tattoo on her body, a line joining the other designs. And as they do so she tells them the story of each:
My first tattoo was a wound, but all the rest have been a healing. Did you know that a tattoo is a series of holes threaded together? What does a necklace of holes make? I think of them as my inside dress, my beautiful wounds. Whatever, I am wearing a suit of holes as I hurry toward the end of the belt. Some are tallies, others are totems. All are archives, books lined up across my body. A love letter to war, a child's handprint. An invented god. A dragon peering between the bars of my ribcage. The threaded outline of a kiss. A caged heartbeat. Angels playing cards in the low light. A ship unzipping the ocean. Each tattoo is a story, a moment pinned to the body. No, not quite: the tattoo is the butterfly unpinned.
The overall story she tells is one of how she, and her mother and grandmother before and with her, have an ability to drop into different times and different people, from dystopian features, to 19th century mining communities, and to the (ficticious) Maryville lesbian bar which featured in Taylor's T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry and Polari Prize collection C+nto and Othered Poems.
Indeed I believe the story in the novel, in germination for some time, may have come before the poems, with The Night Alphabet itself inspired by Taylor's Songs My Enemy Taught Me, described as "a collection of back-alley poetry and flick-knife tales detailing Woman’s global struggle against sexual terrorism and colonisation".
The tattoos also function as flags planted in occupied territory - the body of a woman which men try to control. And one common thread that links the stories told by Jones misogyny and male violence (in varied forms) towards women - or is it, or is this simply the story of our world. Towards the end of the tattoo session, Small asks Jones:
Why do you only talk about women, though? Why are these stories all about women?
I turn to face her, implacable. I am getting bored. It has been a long day, an endless day. The same day.
Would you ask that of a fucking man? And anyway, they're not, are they? Not exactly.
I examine a new age spot on the back of my hand, a pale brown full stop. My nails need cutting. My fingers are yellowing from holding on to the side of cigarettes as though they are life rafts.
The thing is, women are half the planet. We are at least half the story.
Cass looks up.
You say that, that it's about women, but it's not really true, is it? They're about things that have happened to women—
Small interjects.
Things that happen to women because they're women, that's the crucial bit.
She is right of course, to a degree. But I have no agenda. I am reporting on lives I remember, but whether I am in control of that is debatable.
I suppose that being female, I am more drawn to the female experience, but it's not exclusive. I've fallen into the bodies of boys and spent years trying to find my way out.
And as the story comes to its conclusion, the link between Jones, Cass and Small - and why she is there - becomes clearer, the lines of a poem, Women Unborn by Anna Swir, a key motif:
I am not born as yet,
five minutes before my birth.
I can still go back
into my unbirth.
A strong Goldsmiths Prize contender and one I hope the Booker judges don't overlook (as the Women's Prize judges bizarrly did).
And excitingly this is the first of an intended trilogy - with the stories of Jones’s mother and grandmother to follow.
My head cannot understand them. My body understands perfectly.
The Night Alphabet by Joelle Taylor is a strikingly original work, written in poetic and powerful prose, what the author has described as "a sort of weird sci-Fi I’m calling queer futurism."
She held my gaze like it was something injured, twitch-eye and mad with story.
It opens with our narrator, Jones, undergoing some sort of transformative time-travel, being in both 2223 but simultaneously a simalcrum of Hackney, 1996:
I know where I am. Back. This is the last time; it has to be.
I land in myself, running across a trim playing field flanked by holo-graphic London plane trees and analogue tower blocks. The grass beneath my feet is well behaved. Here again. Hackney MunicoPark. The weather programmers have calculated this day to always be the start of Spring here. The children in the overlooking tower blocks might not be able to afford the daily entrance fee to the playground, but they still catch the artificial breezes from it for free, gathered in blue plastic bags. I have grown to love them.
At the exit, a soft tide of tattoos materialises across each of my arms. Without looking, I know the tattoos have begun to find themselves again across my body, as though called. The anchor, the fly and the cat, the great net across my belly, the soundwave, the mermaid, the word `mother' in a banner, the map of me. Perhaps I look like a gallery rather than a tattooed woman. Perhaps I am a hanged woman, something to be curious about on Sunday afternoons. Maybe each of the tattoos is a still in the film reel of my existence, my skin a cinema screen.
[...]
Nearer to Winter now, I bow my head against insistent November rains, the kind that nag the body and worry the heart. Wolves of wind chase my silhouette up the street. The weather programmers are all notorious sadists. Ahead of me the white sun is a baby's head retreating into the womb, and who could blame her? The evening is coming and if I am right, as sometimes I am, it may even come on time. It is strange how the past is always slightly ahead of us, standing on a street corner smoking a cigarette, waiting for us to catch up with what has already happened. I know now that when we leave home, it follows us.
There she enters a tattoo parlour run by two women, Cass and a teenager called Small, and asks them to make one last tattoo on her body, a line joining the other designs. And as they do so she tells them the story of each:
My first tattoo was a wound, but all the rest have been a healing. Did you know that a tattoo is a series of holes threaded together? What does a necklace of holes make? I think of them as my inside dress, my beautiful wounds. Whatever, I am wearing a suit of holes as I hurry toward the end of the belt. Some are tallies, others are totems. All are archives, books lined up across my body. A love letter to war, a child's handprint. An invented god. A dragon peering between the bars of my ribcage. The threaded outline of a kiss. A caged heartbeat. Angels playing cards in the low light. A ship unzipping the ocean. Each tattoo is a story, a moment pinned to the body. No, not quite: the tattoo is the butterfly unpinned.
The overall story she tells is one of how she, and her mother and grandmother before and with her, have an ability to drop into different times and different people, from dystopian features, to 19th century mining communities, and to the (ficticious) Maryville lesbian bar which featured in Taylor's T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry and Polari Prize collection C+nto and Othered Poems.
Indeed I believe the story in the novel, in germination for some time, may have come before the poems, with The Night Alphabet itself inspired by Taylor's Songs My Enemy Taught Me, described as "a collection of back-alley poetry and flick-knife tales detailing Woman’s global struggle against sexual terrorism and colonisation".
The tattoos also function as flags planted in occupied territory - the body of a woman which men try to control. And one common thread that links the stories told by Jones misogyny and male violence (in varied forms) towards women - or is it, or is this simply the story of our world. Towards the end of the tattoo session, Small asks Jones:
Why do you only talk about women, though? Why are these stories all about women?
I turn to face her, implacable. I am getting bored. It has been a long day, an endless day. The same day.
Would you ask that of a fucking man? And anyway, they're not, are they? Not exactly.
I examine a new age spot on the back of my hand, a pale brown full stop. My nails need cutting. My fingers are yellowing from holding on to the side of cigarettes as though they are life rafts.
The thing is, women are half the planet. We are at least half the story.
Cass looks up.
You say that, that it's about women, but it's not really true, is it? They're about things that have happened to women—
Small interjects.
Things that happen to women because they're women, that's the crucial bit.
She is right of course, to a degree. But I have no agenda. I am reporting on lives I remember, but whether I am in control of that is debatable.
I suppose that being female, I am more drawn to the female experience, but it's not exclusive. I've fallen into the bodies of boys and spent years trying to find my way out.
And as the story comes to its conclusion, the link between Jones, Cass and Small - and why she is there - becomes clearer, the lines of a poem, Women Unborn by Anna Swir, a key motif:
I am not born as yet,
five minutes before my birth.
I can still go back
into my unbirth.
A strong Goldsmiths Prize contender and one I hope the Booker judges don't overlook (as the Women's Prize judges bizarrly did).
And excitingly this is the first of an intended trilogy - with the stories of Jones’s mother and grandmother to follow.
June 29, 2025
A kaleidoscopic work that is bound together by societal violence against women and odes to the power of stories
Men are broken things, breaking things
Poet Joelle Taylor starts of The Night Alphabet with a woman, called Jones, who walks into a tattoo parlour in 23rd century Hackney. House music from the 1990s give the place a retro feel (or is there time travel in play?). Jones wants the two shopkeepers to connect her myriad tattoos together. The chapters in the novel alternate between conversations in the tattoo shop and excursions to the past and future of the main character, who “time travels” through remembrance and the power of storytelling.
This ranges from stories set in the mines around Manchester, with Winifred “Fred” Welsh who takes the work of her dead father, to a Prophet Song like dystopian and bombed London ruled over by Quiet Men who questions people with Are you English enough to be English?. Gutter girls, taking on gang violence through women cooperating, is uplifting.
The gene editing at the end of the novel (with experimental out of body pregnancies, including gene editing to change race of embryos and making babies specific to sex work or being a soldier) reminded me of Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, also due to a sex trafficking chapter earlier in the novel, while the general writing in terms of lyrical quality and focus on the queer female experience also made me think of Jeanette Winterson. There are chapters on the hiring family members, leading to power imbalances and abuse, a commentary on adoption? We have women literally being erased The Memory Police style with body parts disappearing, including any female depictions in the National Portrait Gallery.
While Taylor is excellent in terms of metaphors and the sheer richness of the language, I would have wanted some more variety in narrative voice between the stories. Only the story told from the murderous male intel perspective near the middle of the book was truly very different, in an almost nauseating way. Still this is a daring debut, that shows both ambition and great literary skill.
I hope this novel will be recognised and finds its way to more readers!
Quotes:
God made a mistake, I’m just editing
Some of my ancestors are in my future
She is the colour of a sleepless night
The way to create eternity is telling a story
In these clothes I am 6 shillings, without them I am 2.5.
In my family people don’t have a gap year, they have unemployment
Once upon a time there was no time
Patience is the greater part of pain
Being violent he expected violence
What men do themselves is worse than anything women could conjure.
She wears her hair like a hangover
When women speak about revenge, they are speaking about survival
Our safety was our primary revenge
We understand our oppression when the boot is lifted from the neck, momentarily
Empathy is the root of intelligence
The more people we where the better people we became
Bullets are bees pollinating panic
Oceans are formed from the tears of the drowning
Like water, stories can get in anywhere
In a way every woman is a mother
Where do woman go when they are not seen?
When a woman says no it is an act of violence
Men are broken things, breaking things
Poet Joelle Taylor starts of The Night Alphabet with a woman, called Jones, who walks into a tattoo parlour in 23rd century Hackney. House music from the 1990s give the place a retro feel (or is there time travel in play?). Jones wants the two shopkeepers to connect her myriad tattoos together. The chapters in the novel alternate between conversations in the tattoo shop and excursions to the past and future of the main character, who “time travels” through remembrance and the power of storytelling.
This ranges from stories set in the mines around Manchester, with Winifred “Fred” Welsh who takes the work of her dead father, to a Prophet Song like dystopian and bombed London ruled over by Quiet Men who questions people with Are you English enough to be English?. Gutter girls, taking on gang violence through women cooperating, is uplifting.
The gene editing at the end of the novel (with experimental out of body pregnancies, including gene editing to change race of embryos and making babies specific to sex work or being a soldier) reminded me of Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, also due to a sex trafficking chapter earlier in the novel, while the general writing in terms of lyrical quality and focus on the queer female experience also made me think of Jeanette Winterson. There are chapters on the hiring family members, leading to power imbalances and abuse, a commentary on adoption? We have women literally being erased The Memory Police style with body parts disappearing, including any female depictions in the National Portrait Gallery.
While Taylor is excellent in terms of metaphors and the sheer richness of the language, I would have wanted some more variety in narrative voice between the stories. Only the story told from the murderous male intel perspective near the middle of the book was truly very different, in an almost nauseating way. Still this is a daring debut, that shows both ambition and great literary skill.
I hope this novel will be recognised and finds its way to more readers!
Quotes:
God made a mistake, I’m just editing
Some of my ancestors are in my future
She is the colour of a sleepless night
The way to create eternity is telling a story
In these clothes I am 6 shillings, without them I am 2.5.
In my family people don’t have a gap year, they have unemployment
Once upon a time there was no time
Patience is the greater part of pain
Being violent he expected violence
What men do themselves is worse than anything women could conjure.
She wears her hair like a hangover
When women speak about revenge, they are speaking about survival
Our safety was our primary revenge
We understand our oppression when the boot is lifted from the neck, momentarily
Empathy is the root of intelligence
The more people we where the better people we became
Bullets are bees pollinating panic
Oceans are formed from the tears of the drowning
Like water, stories can get in anywhere
In a way every woman is a mother
Where do woman go when they are not seen?
When a woman says no it is an act of violence
November 16, 2023
Our veins a map of escape routes across the city. They thought we eroticised danger. We didn't. We eroticised survival. The truth is we were tattooed before we were tattooed.
Admittedly I didn't expect this to be so mind-blowing-ly brilliant (by that I mean in the sense that one doesn't usually have a very high expectation when it comes to 'debut'/first novels) even though I was pretty sure that it was going to be at least 'very good' (knowing that I already like Taylor's poetry). Extremely well-written. And not only is it brilliant, but I think this is such a 'necessary' book. A book 'the world' needs. Sometimes one reads a book (esp. novels) and wonder what the fuck was the point of this being published, you know? But I didn't have to question this one at all. It's glorious in every way. RTC later.
Poets (I already like) writing novels? I'm so here for it (the last one I read before this being Andrew McMillan's Pity - and interestingly, both of them wrote about (albeit different) 'mining' accidents, or more precisely, disasters).
'The cyber night of Hackney is replaced by the indifferent afternoon of a Northern mill town. I have never known grey to be so beautiful, so full of ideas—The television talks to itself, as it does more and more these days. The radiator tuts.'
'The truth is you must be everyone in a story to understand the story. The victim becomes the perpetrator, the liar is lied to. How else are we to learn except through vicious unlearning? The threads are unpicked, and painfully. All those tiny holes. All those tiny mouths. I balance on the edge of holes looking down knowing one day I might be looking up. How easy it is to fall into yourself. How hard it is to climb out.'
Read
June 10, 2025oh dear, another one of those books where my peculiar form of reading-myopia leads to an utter breakdown of understanding, where the word-word on the page is at war with its intended meaning, or at least it seems that way to me, and I’m left drowning in a sludgy what-the-heck limbo, by which I mean, what the heck does later I saw the woman inside my father mean? what does my eyes were like coal mines where my eyes used to be the next morning at breakfast mean? what does What happens to the betrayed, those who have their lands removed from beneath them like market stall rugs mean? seriously? Like ‘market stall rugs?’ is that really what you mean? But yes, go ahead and tell me I hear stories after death of crowds of sorts waiting dockside for Bulk and, on finding him, following. All right. Okay. Yes. The music is here. But where is the beat? Where is the pulse, the structured measure? What a distance this book asks me to traverse, between word and semantic sense! I got lost. Poetry in my prose needs to shed light on meaning, not obscure meaning. Once again I am left feeling left out and disgruntled. It happens sometimes.
Read
April 19, 2024Joelle Taylor is a widely admired and respected queer, working class poet, and The Night Alphabet is her debut novel; one which blends the plotting and character writing of prose with all the metaphor and provocative imagery of her poetry. It is also a novel that doubles as a short story collection, as our protagonist jumps into and out of the lives of other people throughout history.
My full thoughts: https://booksandbao.com/intersectiona...
My full thoughts: https://booksandbao.com/intersectiona...
May 7, 2025
This book took me on quite a ride. I was fully immersed in each 'remembering' and rememberer, every trip powerful in its own way. (Also loved the artwork at the start of each section.) The Incel story was almost too much - the author definitely 'went there', but gave me the courage to stay with her. I don't know if I've ever read a book that gave such a real and rounded sense of what it is to be a woman in so many manifestations. Of all the stories, the one that touched me most was 'O Marysville', the fatal attack on a lesbian bar in London (circa I don't know when). The author was so clearly suffused with love for her dyke characters that it spilled into me. I just knew that they had to be her people, and seeing a photo of the author confirmed that. Just beautiful. "We were a knuckle of butches who laughed together, fell in love inappropriately, shouted when we spoke, pushed each other, and lent each other our combs. We checked each other. Are you here? Are you OK? Did it hurt? You look good."
And oh, the language. Taylor is a genius of metaphor - punchlines with the emphasis on 'punch'.
And a little taste of more extended writing on violence against women:
And oh, the language. Taylor is a genius of metaphor - punchlines with the emphasis on 'punch'.
Ratchet's face boiled, and his teeth turned to carpet tacks. Mick gripped the steering wheel as though it were a cliff edge."
She unwrapped a smile in front of me and balanced it between us. I did not take it.
...her hair shaven so close to her skull it looked as though it was trying to get in.
....the wind was a burglar who knew where we kept the house keys.
And a little taste of more extended writing on violence against women:
One gunshot in the centre of a girl and the whole town falls in after her. Her parents, her brother, her first boyfriend, the best friend who is really her lover, the entire school, the college she would have attended, the practice where she would have worked as a barrister, and all the people she would have defended, they fall into the wound too, and her future children, they follow her into nothing, and their children, and all the changes that would have been made by them, everything is sucked into the black hole at the centre of her, and stays there."
June 12, 2024
Poets writing novels is a recipe for 5-star prose at any time. Still, Joelle Taylor had no right to kill it this hard with her debut The Night Alphabet.
It’s a speculative literary novel that opens with a woman entering a tattoo-parlor with an unusual request. She wishes final tattoo to add to her already extensive collection of them; a single line that connects them all. Throughout the tattooing process, she takes her tattoo-artists on a journey “across the map of her life”; each tattoo revealing a story of her past and weaving an integrate pattern of a turbulent life lived. Possibly the most striking prose out of all the books mentioned, combined with a kaleidoscopic journey of queerness, identity and what is meant by “inhabiting a body”, rather than “being” one.
I actually ran out of sticky notes trying to tab all the stunning and memorable lines throughout this book. Standing ovation, perfect 10’s across the board, my hat is tipped and my jaw on the floor. Despite only finishing it a few weeks ago, I'm already overdue for a reread.
It’s a speculative literary novel that opens with a woman entering a tattoo-parlor with an unusual request. She wishes final tattoo to add to her already extensive collection of them; a single line that connects them all. Throughout the tattooing process, she takes her tattoo-artists on a journey “across the map of her life”; each tattoo revealing a story of her past and weaving an integrate pattern of a turbulent life lived. Possibly the most striking prose out of all the books mentioned, combined with a kaleidoscopic journey of queerness, identity and what is meant by “inhabiting a body”, rather than “being” one.
I actually ran out of sticky notes trying to tab all the stunning and memorable lines throughout this book. Standing ovation, perfect 10’s across the board, my hat is tipped and my jaw on the floor. Despite only finishing it a few weeks ago, I'm already overdue for a reread.
October 30, 2023
Just finished this incredible, pure and raw MASTERPIECE by Joelle Taylor. Everyone should gift this book to every. single. woman in their lives. I don't even have the words. This encompasses everything I love about GREAT literature.
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June 2, 2024They don't tell you how monotonous riotous exploration is. Indeed. And I'm of at least two minds about this book because of that. On the one hand, I agree with everything Taylor has written about the ways in which cis men inflict suffering on cis women. By all accounts I should adore the novel: on top of the message, there's metagenre play, and experiment with form, and language that almost always surprises with the turn of the phrase. But on the other hand, it all somehow felt monotonous. Perhaps it's the same message repeated again and again, perhaps it's the form itself (I have hard times with anything resembling short story), or perhaps it's the insistence on cisness that kept putting me off, but I finished the book simultaneously feeling grateful it's over and wanting more. Strange one.
November 9, 2023
If you fancy something highly original, with exquisitely beautiful writing (that you want to print out and frame!), then you need 'The Night Alphabet'. I highlighted more passages to revisit than I have in all the rest of my books put together. Joelle Taylor's award-winning poet status sings from every page. 'The Night Alphabet' is a collection of short stories that read like a novel. The book is inventive, compelling and deeply, deeply affecting. Each story I read was my favourite. Every one of them took my breath away. I don't want to give anything away about the content, but I would urge you to read it and share it with your womenfolk. It's quite bizarre, identifying your Book of the Year two months before the year has even started, yet here we are. And having read 'The Night Alphabet', this feels strangely fitting. This is a book to revisit, time and again. If it doesn't win all the awards next year, I'll eat a MAGA hat.
May 3, 2025
Superb! It reminded me of Mrs Death Misses Death. Poets, huh!
May 17, 2025
Video review https://youtu.be/VkbV23y8VGo
December 4, 2023
The Night Alphabet is a novel of interwoven stories, as a woman tells the stories of her tattoos to two tattoo shop workers. It is 2233 and in Hackney, a woman covered in strange tattoos walks into a tattoo shop, asking for them all to be connected together using ink and blood. As the tattoo takes shape, she tells the stories of these tattoos, each one a doorway to a 'remembering', another life that she fell into and lived in some way. Coal mining, gay bars, murderers, sex work, and more, the stories chart violence against women and different existences, all whilst our protagonist, Jones, reveals more about her history between the tattoos.
Unsurprisingly for a poet like Taylor, the writing really brings this book together, with each story feeling very different and yet still lyrical, never too repetitive. It keeps returning to the tattoo shop like waves on the sea and this gives the book a nice rhythm and pacing too. Some of the stories are more gripping than others, and some explore more nuance than others. One that stood out particularly was the one in which the narrator becomes an incel man who kills women, which has quite a different feel to a lot of the other stories about women being the main character and fighting for things, and it hinted towards interesting questions about perspective as well as forms of female revenge. The titular story also stands out as it is dark and powerful, giving a new form of voice to a group of women. Some of the more obviously dystopian stories were too similar to other 'what if something happened to all people with XX or XY chromosomes' stories for me, and the short length of the individual parts meant there wasn't much nuance to them.
Overall, I enjoyed the writing of The Night Alphabet and the clever way it wove together the stories into a novel, but I didn't feel like all of the stories were as interesting and nuanced as others, and I would've liked to spend more time in the messiness of perspective that Jones talks about at points, and what it means to understand too many sides to any story.
Unsurprisingly for a poet like Taylor, the writing really brings this book together, with each story feeling very different and yet still lyrical, never too repetitive. It keeps returning to the tattoo shop like waves on the sea and this gives the book a nice rhythm and pacing too. Some of the stories are more gripping than others, and some explore more nuance than others. One that stood out particularly was the one in which the narrator becomes an incel man who kills women, which has quite a different feel to a lot of the other stories about women being the main character and fighting for things, and it hinted towards interesting questions about perspective as well as forms of female revenge. The titular story also stands out as it is dark and powerful, giving a new form of voice to a group of women. Some of the more obviously dystopian stories were too similar to other 'what if something happened to all people with XX or XY chromosomes' stories for me, and the short length of the individual parts meant there wasn't much nuance to them.
Overall, I enjoyed the writing of The Night Alphabet and the clever way it wove together the stories into a novel, but I didn't feel like all of the stories were as interesting and nuanced as others, and I would've liked to spend more time in the messiness of perspective that Jones talks about at points, and what it means to understand too many sides to any story.
December 26, 2024
Mir fiel der Einstieg wirklich schwer, aber als ich mich dann auf die Sprache hab‘ einlassen können, hat mich das Buch unfassbar berührt. Der Gedicht-Stil zusammen mit der Idee und der Fokus auf die Erfahrungen von Frauen, war sehr aktuell und gleichzeitig zeitlos.
February 2, 2024
This book is truly unique, I can say wholeheartedly that it’s unlike anything I’ve ever encountered before.
Without giving away too much of the story, The Night Alphabet contains lots of separate tales, all of which are connected by a loose but important line. This can be confusing at first, combined with Taylor’s abstract descriptions and writing style, I wondered if I really knew what was going on. The book started to click for me when I let the words sweep me away, and gave in to the stories. A one of a kind reading experience ensued!
Taylor’s writing is truly dazzling, their background as a poet absolutely shines through in absorbing and lyrical prose: during my read, lines often benefitted from being read several times to wrap my head around the whole picture. In fact, once I’d finished the book I almost wanted to go back to the beginning and read it with fresh eyes to discover even deeper layers of meaning.
The Night Alphabet is harrowing yet illuminating speculative fiction; push through any confusion or doubts and give in to the words for a remarkable and memorable reading experience.
Without giving away too much of the story, The Night Alphabet contains lots of separate tales, all of which are connected by a loose but important line. This can be confusing at first, combined with Taylor’s abstract descriptions and writing style, I wondered if I really knew what was going on. The book started to click for me when I let the words sweep me away, and gave in to the stories. A one of a kind reading experience ensued!
Taylor’s writing is truly dazzling, their background as a poet absolutely shines through in absorbing and lyrical prose: during my read, lines often benefitted from being read several times to wrap my head around the whole picture. In fact, once I’d finished the book I almost wanted to go back to the beginning and read it with fresh eyes to discover even deeper layers of meaning.
The Night Alphabet is harrowing yet illuminating speculative fiction; push through any confusion or doubts and give in to the words for a remarkable and memorable reading experience.
August 6, 2024
2⭐️ what a slog! I am so sad that I found this book really hard to read. The concept of this book was promising, and when read like short stories I found that certain lives were more impactful than others. This is a book about violence against women and the overall experience of being a woman - very dark, with dark themes. The prose was beautiful but I don’t think it was my style and I found it made the book feel so slow. The prose also hid the explicitness of some of the stories but when realisation hit and I connected the dots on what the metaphors were I wished there had been more trigger warnings. Skim read to finish, would consider this a DNF because of that.
Read
April 10, 2024DNF 30%
December 22, 2024
2.5
Loved the ambition & premise but this unfortunately took a lot of effort to get through. Firstly, this is less a novel & more of a short story collection with one common thread. Beautiful prose in places and certain stories towards the end really stood out but unfortunately this was finished only because I bought the hardback…🫠🥲
Loved the ambition & premise but this unfortunately took a lot of effort to get through. Firstly, this is less a novel & more of a short story collection with one common thread. Beautiful prose in places and certain stories towards the end really stood out but unfortunately this was finished only because I bought the hardback…🫠🥲
June 18, 2024
This is a story concerned with its telling. A story filled with stories about stories.
”That the way to create infinity is to tell a story. Inside every story is another story, and outside every story is a person needing to understand how it ends, not understanding that it cannot end. That as soon as the speaker stops, they will pick up their lips and continue the story themselves. That they will write more of it. That they will pas it on. That they are the story.”
I fell into this story and had trouble climbing out of it until I had reached the final page. And now that I have I take it with me forever.
This book will not be for everyone especially because of its writing style, it also has a lot of heavy content that warrants warning.
”That the way to create infinity is to tell a story. Inside every story is another story, and outside every story is a person needing to understand how it ends, not understanding that it cannot end. That as soon as the speaker stops, they will pick up their lips and continue the story themselves. That they will write more of it. That they will pas it on. That they are the story.”
I fell into this story and had trouble climbing out of it until I had reached the final page. And now that I have I take it with me forever.
This book will not be for everyone especially because of its writing style, it also has a lot of heavy content that warrants warning.
dnf
April 10, 2024DNF at 15% - gorgeous writing but I’m stupid
June 6, 2025
Ugh poetic, crushing and beautiful. So many heartbreaking, thought-provoking stories looped together in a single tale of womanhood.
June 23, 2025
You should read this one. And follow this brilliant author. Mind bending dystopian literary queer fiction written by a poet. Review to come (later today or tomorrow:p).
November 24, 2025
The best book I have read this year. Such beautiful writing and so poetic. Moving and heart wrenching, uncomfortable at times but pure brilliance.
Read
April 13, 2024Sadly didn’t enjoy the writing style or the storytelling. Found I couldn’t stay focussed and it was taking me ages to read a couple of pages.
September 11, 2025
Wtf was this book?
Read
March 31, 2024DNF @ 25%. I couldn’t get into this. Perhaps just not my genre idk
March 24, 2024
Wooftie! What a book!
February 14, 2024
Hello to a new auto-buy author, this debut novel from poet Joelle Taylor absolutely blew me away. Like a baby Carmen Maria Machado, she weaves together some pretty scary themes with just the most ridiculously beautiful writing in this wonderfully crafted collection of short stories.
What binds these stories together? A single line, made in blood and ink, and Jones (the protagonist), who visits a Hackney tattoo parlour in the year 2233, and asks the artists working there to connect her existing artwork together. As they do so, she tells them the stories behind each inking and how each of them symbolises one of her "rememberings", moments where she falls into different lives. Some stories are way back in the past, some are worrying tales from a dystopian future, all have a running theme of the resilience of women against hardship and violence.
Each story felt individual but still told with the same distinct voice, the writing was lyrical, bold and immersive and the pacing was great too. None of the stories were more than around 50 pages long and the longer ones had their own shorter chapters too (yes, this is important!), and I couldn't really say that there were any that I didn't connect with. As always, there are favourites, and the story in which we meet the 'Gutter Girls' was mine, but special mentions go to to the super unsettling 'Pipefish' and 'The Editor'.
Not only did I enjoy all of the interconnecting stories, but Jones' story itself was thoroughly engaging, and as we learn more about her and her family I became only more intrigued. There are layers that unfold throughout and it was honestly a real treat to read.
Thanks so much to Riverrun for sending us advance copies of this before it comes out in the UK tomorrow (15th Feb).
What binds these stories together? A single line, made in blood and ink, and Jones (the protagonist), who visits a Hackney tattoo parlour in the year 2233, and asks the artists working there to connect her existing artwork together. As they do so, she tells them the stories behind each inking and how each of them symbolises one of her "rememberings", moments where she falls into different lives. Some stories are way back in the past, some are worrying tales from a dystopian future, all have a running theme of the resilience of women against hardship and violence.
Each story felt individual but still told with the same distinct voice, the writing was lyrical, bold and immersive and the pacing was great too. None of the stories were more than around 50 pages long and the longer ones had their own shorter chapters too (yes, this is important!), and I couldn't really say that there were any that I didn't connect with. As always, there are favourites, and the story in which we meet the 'Gutter Girls' was mine, but special mentions go to to the super unsettling 'Pipefish' and 'The Editor'.
Not only did I enjoy all of the interconnecting stories, but Jones' story itself was thoroughly engaging, and as we learn more about her and her family I became only more intrigued. There are layers that unfold throughout and it was honestly a real treat to read.
Thanks so much to Riverrun for sending us advance copies of this before it comes out in the UK tomorrow (15th Feb).
December 2, 2023
Published 15 February 2024. This novel by poet Joelle Taylor blindsided me totally - I wasn't expecting something that was so affecting and as for the writing, the poetry in the use of language and the images, it is so visual and clear - stunning. We are in 2233 and a woman walks into a Hackney tattoo parlour. She is covered in tattoos but wants one final inking, she wants to link, to connect all of the images with an ink mixed with blood. As the two women in the parlour start their work, they ask Jones about the tattoos and she tells them the stories behind them. And this is when we learn that Jones is not just a woman covered in body art, she is different. Each tattoo is a reminder of what she refers to as rememberings, when she falls into different lives. Some are in the past - we go 19th century mines, some are dystopian - the chilling Quiet Men. We have stories of sex workers, trafficking, murder, revenge, and even a plan to genetically modify baby girls. Each story had an impact. Beware there is violence against women here, but there is also strong and resourceful women. I thought this was so inventive and as for the way that the lives of the women in the parlour are woven into Jones - you'll just have to read it yourself.
April 19, 2024
2.25
Setting: UK
Rep: queer
My first thought upon finishing this book was oh man what a slog. It felt like it dragged on forever - this book was at least 100 pages too long. Considering the stories of the protagonist falling into other lives don't actually have much bearing on the book, there were far too many and they were far too long, some up to 40 pages. I'm clearly in the major minority here - this book has found its audience, and I am not it. I'm all for a weird book, but this was just full and prolonged and far too verbose. The writing and plot felt too pleased with itself and I found it quite grating. Wish I could've loved this but I really didn't.
Setting: UK
Rep: queer
My first thought upon finishing this book was oh man what a slog. It felt like it dragged on forever - this book was at least 100 pages too long. Considering the stories of the protagonist falling into other lives don't actually have much bearing on the book, there were far too many and they were far too long, some up to 40 pages. I'm clearly in the major minority here - this book has found its audience, and I am not it. I'm all for a weird book, but this was just full and prolonged and far too verbose. The writing and plot felt too pleased with itself and I found it quite grating. Wish I could've loved this but I really didn't.
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