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Death in the Mouth: Original Horror by People of Colour
What is horror to those living in the margins?
Where terror is systematized and in the very air everyone happily breathes?
A misheard word.
The thud of boots.
An impossible color.
A foreign growth.
Death in the Mouth is a collection of horror stories and art showcasing BIPOC and ethnically marginalized storytellers from around the world. You’ll read stories featuring grotesque manifestations of dread, the enveloping sludge of grief, and the insectoid itch of deep-seated fear. Embodiments of mania and displacements of faith. Harrowing ecstasy and debilitating hope. Transgressions of the body, the spirit, and the community. Unique and terrifying alien mythology from the future. Quiet, creeping absurdities. Weird urban legends from secondary worlds.
In this anthology, Sloane Leong and Cassie Hart bring you an incredible range of stories and illustrations that celebrate the voices of those overlooked to show you the terrifying and exquisite scope of what horror can be.
Where terror is systematized and in the very air everyone happily breathes?
A misheard word.
The thud of boots.
An impossible color.
A foreign growth.
Death in the Mouth is a collection of horror stories and art showcasing BIPOC and ethnically marginalized storytellers from around the world. You’ll read stories featuring grotesque manifestations of dread, the enveloping sludge of grief, and the insectoid itch of deep-seated fear. Embodiments of mania and displacements of faith. Harrowing ecstasy and debilitating hope. Transgressions of the body, the spirit, and the community. Unique and terrifying alien mythology from the future. Quiet, creeping absurdities. Weird urban legends from secondary worlds.
In this anthology, Sloane Leong and Cassie Hart bring you an incredible range of stories and illustrations that celebrate the voices of those overlooked to show you the terrifying and exquisite scope of what horror can be.
ebook
First published October 1, 2022
11 people are currently reading
712 people want to read
About the author
Sloane Leong
71 books190 followersSloane Leong is a mixed indigenous cartoonist, artist, and writer. She explores themes of survival, displacement, relationships, spirituality, identity, and mental illness through genres like science fiction, horror, adventure, and slice-of-life. She is currently working on the second arc of her sci-fi adventure comic Prism Stalker and has a new book coming up in 2020 from First Second called A Map to the Sun.
Current projects: A MAP TO THE SUN (First Second, 2020), PRISM STALKER VOL 2 (Image Comics, 2021)
Current projects: A MAP TO THE SUN (First Second, 2020), PRISM STALKER VOL 2 (Image Comics, 2021)
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 30, 2022
This here is a collection with teeth. Sloane Leong has pulled together a hell of an anthology and I've been introduced to a lot of authors I'm going to need to keep an eye out for.
A few of my favorites:
Welcome to the Labyrinth (Isha Karki) - A brilliant choice for an opener. The setting was beautifully vivid, which made the glitchy imagery all the more effective.
They'll Keep You Gestated (Beatrice Winifred Iker) - Unhinged, and I mean that as a compliment.
Paradise (Sloane Leong) - I don't think I have ever noped so hard at a lush green Eden before. Top-notch body horror.
Never Lie To Me (Priya Chand) - What a fun spin on a particular bit of folklore. The realization of just the author was playing with was delightful.
On Tattered Wings (Jessica Cho) - Magic with a price, crossing lines that shouldn't be crossed, and *birds birds birds birds.*
Death in the Mouth 2 when?
A few of my favorites:
Welcome to the Labyrinth (Isha Karki) - A brilliant choice for an opener. The setting was beautifully vivid, which made the glitchy imagery all the more effective.
They'll Keep You Gestated (Beatrice Winifred Iker) - Unhinged, and I mean that as a compliment.
Paradise (Sloane Leong) - I don't think I have ever noped so hard at a lush green Eden before. Top-notch body horror.
Never Lie To Me (Priya Chand) - What a fun spin on a particular bit of folklore. The realization of just the author was playing with was delightful.
On Tattered Wings (Jessica Cho) - Magic with a price, crossing lines that shouldn't be crossed, and *birds birds birds birds.*
Death in the Mouth 2 when?
September 10, 2022
Horror gets kind of a schlocky reputation in 'literary' circles - to the extent that Horror as a genre is often erased in favour of Thriller, Suspense, and Dark Fantasy. I think this is a real shame, because to me good Horror is a pure exercise in literary metaphor - the subversion of mundane, gnawing anxieties into monsters that can be defeated (or that can't). It has much more to tell us than an endless parade of formulaic copagandist who-dunnits and armoured skeletons do.
Death in the Mouth is a brilliant example of this. Twenty-six original stories, twenty-seven original illustrations, all of them offering a unique insight and experience. From weird and touching ('What Hurts Henry Watanabe') to deeply insightful ('Drowned in Mindfulness'), beautifully alien ('Paradise'), and searingly realistic ('They Will Take Up Serpents'), these stories prise up the dull, scarred surface of the world and reveal the wriggling black undergrowth. It's an intense tour through a variety of vivid locations and perspectives, richly illustrated, some quick and sharp ('Balloon Girl), others slow and heavy with dread ('The Homebody'). By highlighting the voices of People of Colour in this anthology, editors Leong and Hart show us how quiet and dead the world is when these voices are stilled. It is a vibrant, unsettling, thought-provoking anthology.
Beware, these stories have (sometimes literal) teeth! There are also some minor sub-editing errors in the pre-release copy which I read (so these may be resolved on publishing) but nothing that affects readability.
For fans of: Toni Morrison, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Rivers Solomon (their gorgeous short story 'Some of Us Are Grapefruit' is included in the anthology), Sayaka Murata, and short stories of all kinds!
Death in the Mouth is a brilliant example of this. Twenty-six original stories, twenty-seven original illustrations, all of them offering a unique insight and experience. From weird and touching ('What Hurts Henry Watanabe') to deeply insightful ('Drowned in Mindfulness'), beautifully alien ('Paradise'), and searingly realistic ('They Will Take Up Serpents'), these stories prise up the dull, scarred surface of the world and reveal the wriggling black undergrowth. It's an intense tour through a variety of vivid locations and perspectives, richly illustrated, some quick and sharp ('Balloon Girl), others slow and heavy with dread ('The Homebody'). By highlighting the voices of People of Colour in this anthology, editors Leong and Hart show us how quiet and dead the world is when these voices are stilled. It is a vibrant, unsettling, thought-provoking anthology.
Beware, these stories have (sometimes literal) teeth! There are also some minor sub-editing errors in the pre-release copy which I read (so these may be resolved on publishing) but nothing that affects readability.
For fans of: Toni Morrison, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Rivers Solomon (their gorgeous short story 'Some of Us Are Grapefruit' is included in the anthology), Sayaka Murata, and short stories of all kinds!
October 1, 2022
Bizarre, brilliant stories, each one accompanied by a haunting illustration. Death In The Mouth is both a literary and artistic bundle of marvels. A wide range of themes and writing styles– there's a story to appeal to any reader in this gem of a collection.
The illustrated introduction is a gorgeous twist on a typical anthology intro. It asks the question "What is horror, to those living in the margins?" Every author in this collection has given a vivid answer in their stories.
I also enjoyed the inclusion of Authors Notes at the ends of several tales, providing context and inspiration.
Some of my favorite stories:
"Water Goes, Sand Remains" by Jolie Toomajan
"The Three Resurrections of my Grandfather" by K-Ming Chang
"Paradise" by Sloane Leong
"What Hurts Henry Watanabe" by JL Akagi
"Some of Us are Grapefruit" by Rivers Solomon
I loved all the artwork, but am particularly fond of the illustrations by Makoto Chi, Rem, Viv Magaña, Bhanu Pratap, and Naomi Butterfield.
Thoughtfully crafted and wonderfully executed, Death in the Mouth is worth your time, as a horror aficionado or just someone dipping their toes in.
The illustrated introduction is a gorgeous twist on a typical anthology intro. It asks the question "What is horror, to those living in the margins?" Every author in this collection has given a vivid answer in their stories.
I also enjoyed the inclusion of Authors Notes at the ends of several tales, providing context and inspiration.
Some of my favorite stories:
"Water Goes, Sand Remains" by Jolie Toomajan
"The Three Resurrections of my Grandfather" by K-Ming Chang
"Paradise" by Sloane Leong
"What Hurts Henry Watanabe" by JL Akagi
"Some of Us are Grapefruit" by Rivers Solomon
I loved all the artwork, but am particularly fond of the illustrations by Makoto Chi, Rem, Viv Magaña, Bhanu Pratap, and Naomi Butterfield.
Thoughtfully crafted and wonderfully executed, Death in the Mouth is worth your time, as a horror aficionado or just someone dipping their toes in.
October 2, 2022
Can horror be beautiful?
I guess horror can be anything we want. I guess horror looks different when some of us come from backgrounds where we can be outcast due to the color of your skin. Or maybe horror looks the same because it's a binding agent and it can hold us all together.
This horror story is beautiful. The artwork was spectacular and I spent so much of my time looking at art for clues of what's to come, maybe a hint of the stories ending was waiting to be found. I'm not good at art so that never happened, but i did enjoy the work.
The stories were so well written and had so many different things to offer. There was body horror, sad horror, and everything inbetween..
It's one of those where you need to pick it up and find the story that pulls on your soul the most.
I guess horror can be anything we want. I guess horror looks different when some of us come from backgrounds where we can be outcast due to the color of your skin. Or maybe horror looks the same because it's a binding agent and it can hold us all together.
This horror story is beautiful. The artwork was spectacular and I spent so much of my time looking at art for clues of what's to come, maybe a hint of the stories ending was waiting to be found. I'm not good at art so that never happened, but i did enjoy the work.
The stories were so well written and had so many different things to offer. There was body horror, sad horror, and everything inbetween..
It's one of those where you need to pick it up and find the story that pulls on your soul the most.
December 31, 2022
4.5 stars- what a fantastic collection!
The standouts for me were-
Obedient Son by Kelsea Yu
The Homebody by Darcie Little Badger
What Hurts Henry Watanabe by JL Akagi
The standouts for me were-
Obedient Son by Kelsea Yu
The Homebody by Darcie Little Badger
What Hurts Henry Watanabe by JL Akagi
September 29, 2022
There are some anthologies where you can breeze through each story back to back, and some that need time to digest. Time to sit with what you just read and allow the words to rinse through.
Death in the Mouth is that collection.
By the time I finished "Water Goes, Sand Remains" (the third story, and one of my favourites), I knew I was in for a hell of a ride. Lyrical and dense, many stories demand you pay attention to each word, sound it out, let the rhythm dance between your ears and build worlds in your brain.
Other favourites were "Wind Up Teeth", "No Hungry Generation", "The Three Resurrections of my Grandfather", "Obedient Son", "The Mother-Wound", and "What Hurts Henry Watanabe". I actually had more highlighted, but what's the point in listing the entire ToC?
I absolutely loved the different look into all the cultures, the diverse locations and the varying gender identities. No matter how different the settings are from what you may be used to, the emotions are the same. The relationships are there and are strong. Parental, sibling, lover, friend. It drives home how human we all are despite different ways of living.
There isn't enough words to say how fantastic the illustrations were. "Balloon Girl" might win my favourite spot, but check out the image for "What Hurts Henry Watanabe" and tell me it doesn't make you NEED to read the story. The editors did a tremendous job matching artists with authors, that much is true.
I would recommend this collection to anyone. There's a story for everyone, no matter what your preference. Quick and fast paced. Slow and mesmerizing. Surreal, straight-forward, mind-melting. You'll get what you want and you'll get what you didn't know you needed.
Death in the Mouth is that collection.
By the time I finished "Water Goes, Sand Remains" (the third story, and one of my favourites), I knew I was in for a hell of a ride. Lyrical and dense, many stories demand you pay attention to each word, sound it out, let the rhythm dance between your ears and build worlds in your brain.
Other favourites were "Wind Up Teeth", "No Hungry Generation", "The Three Resurrections of my Grandfather", "Obedient Son", "The Mother-Wound", and "What Hurts Henry Watanabe". I actually had more highlighted, but what's the point in listing the entire ToC?
I absolutely loved the different look into all the cultures, the diverse locations and the varying gender identities. No matter how different the settings are from what you may be used to, the emotions are the same. The relationships are there and are strong. Parental, sibling, lover, friend. It drives home how human we all are despite different ways of living.
There isn't enough words to say how fantastic the illustrations were. "Balloon Girl" might win my favourite spot, but check out the image for "What Hurts Henry Watanabe" and tell me it doesn't make you NEED to read the story. The editors did a tremendous job matching artists with authors, that much is true.
I would recommend this collection to anyone. There's a story for everyone, no matter what your preference. Quick and fast paced. Slow and mesmerizing. Surreal, straight-forward, mind-melting. You'll get what you want and you'll get what you didn't know you needed.
October 10, 2022
I pledged for this anthology on Kickstarter because I really liked the idea and wanted to support it - my expectations were the same as reading any other anthology. This surprised me greatly: I loved most of these stories, only one that I couldn't finish and only a very few that left me meh. This is such a great ratio and I hope the people that made this got a profit. Special shout-out to the artist: all the art is completely amazing. Let me tell you about the ones that stay more with me:
- Drowned in mindfulness by Arasibo Campeche: kind of lovecraftian horror in the sense of too big to comprehend, set in the afterlife + science!
- No Hungry Generations by Johnny Compton: it feels like classic horror with the trope of something too good to be true IS too good to be true, set in thanksgiving which is very fitting.
- The Three Resurrections of my grandfather by K-Ming Chang: She is such a talented writer for horror and the unsettling. She could write a grocery shopping list and make horrifying.
- The Homebody by Darcie Little Badger: the story makes its horror grow and grow with a very sweet center between an aunt and her love for her niece, who she semi-adopted.
- What Hurts Henry Watanabe by JL Akagi: Horrific, the implications are even horrifying but it had such a hopeful ending it took me by surprise.
- Drowned in mindfulness by Arasibo Campeche: kind of lovecraftian horror in the sense of too big to comprehend, set in the afterlife + science!
- No Hungry Generations by Johnny Compton: it feels like classic horror with the trope of something too good to be true IS too good to be true, set in thanksgiving which is very fitting.
- The Three Resurrections of my grandfather by K-Ming Chang: She is such a talented writer for horror and the unsettling. She could write a grocery shopping list and make horrifying.
- The Homebody by Darcie Little Badger: the story makes its horror grow and grow with a very sweet center between an aunt and her love for her niece, who she semi-adopted.
- What Hurts Henry Watanabe by JL Akagi: Horrific, the implications are even horrifying but it had such a hopeful ending it took me by surprise.
October 25, 2022
I absolutely loved this book. People who know me IRL are probably tired of my wax poetics about how horror and science fiction is only good when it uses the genre conventions to say something about the nature of humanity. Reading "genre fiction" by authors who have a point of view and life experience that informs their writing beyond just trying to scare the reader adds layers and depth to the narrative, and there's plenty of that here.
ALSO - the body horror! My absolute favourite horror sub-genre had me absolutely spoiled here. This is not to be missed if you, like me, often find yourself wishing for more intensity and quality in contemporary body horror representations.
As a small addendum, I would recommend reading this on an e-reader or a tablet with a larger-than-phone sized screen so you can really appreciate the illustrations.
ALSO - the body horror! My absolute favourite horror sub-genre had me absolutely spoiled here. This is not to be missed if you, like me, often find yourself wishing for more intensity and quality in contemporary body horror representations.
As a small addendum, I would recommend reading this on an e-reader or a tablet with a larger-than-phone sized screen so you can really appreciate the illustrations.
March 24, 2023
I helped crowdfund this, and it's a gorgeous book, with each story accompanied by a full-page illustration. The collected tales are in a range of styles and themes, from creeping psychological wrongness to nasty body horror to twists on monster mythology. The most memorable pieces include a woman tasked with protecting a monster mountain, and a dutiful son feeding his ailing and ungrateful mother. Some missed the mark for me, but there were definitely more good than bad, and even a few that I found pretty affecting horror-wise. And now I have even more names to add to my to-read list!
June 24, 2023
What a great collection of stories! Highly recommend to both horror fans and speculative fictions fans alike. One of the highest compliments I can give to a pice of literature: reading this collection made me really want to write myself!
Not all of them were my favorites, but that’s expected in an anthology. Some stories were truly amazing, my favorites were ’Welcome to Labyrinth’, ’She’, ’Paradise’ and ’Some of Us are Grapefruit’.
Definitely backing the second volume when the time comes!
Not all of them were my favorites, but that’s expected in an anthology. Some stories were truly amazing, my favorites were ’Welcome to Labyrinth’, ’She’, ’Paradise’ and ’Some of Us are Grapefruit’.
Definitely backing the second volume when the time comes!
January 27, 2025
Death in the Mouth is a dynamic, varied collection of horror stories ranging from creepy and disturbing to haunting to dreamy. Of course, there were some stories that I enjoyed more than others, but overall, this is a great and highly readable volume. The illustrations are beautiful and I loved the way they set the tone for the stories. Some of my favourites in this collection are by Yah Yah Scholfield, K-Ming Chang, JL Akagi, and Sloane Leong. Highly recommend.
November 14, 2023
Fantastic anthology, fantastic stories across the board. Unsettling, memorable, packs an emotional punch. Highly recommended.
*Disclaimer: I was a judge for the 2022 Australian Shadows Awards. This review is my personal opinion and does not reflect the opinion of any judging panel, coordinators, or the AHWA.
*Disclaimer: I was a judge for the 2022 Australian Shadows Awards. This review is my personal opinion and does not reflect the opinion of any judging panel, coordinators, or the AHWA.
October 31, 2022
Anthology where the ratio of good stories actually outweigh the so-so ones. It such a breath of fresh air to read stories with more cultural nuances. When they said diversity they actually meant it in this book.
February 13, 2023
The sort of collection you savor one story at a time, letting it all ruminate after reading. Absolutely horrific. I loved it.
July 24, 2023
TW: death, animal death, blood, body horror, suicide, romanticization of suicide or self harm and depression, alien impregnation, sex
February 4, 2024
Fantastically well put together anthology featuring authors of colour in horror. Definitely some memorable stories, and I can't wait for the second volume of this series
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews