Homebodies: Short Stories

by Amy LeBlanc

“Let me tell you a story: my mother will say she’s a liar and my father will say she remembers things that never happened, but you and I know that isn’t true. Before I tell you, pick up a pair of scissors, or a pen, or a branch, or a flower stem—something to play with when you don’t want to meet my eyes. Unhinge the wasps from your insides before their black venom seeps through.” (“Nectar and Nickel”)

Homebodies is an uncanny and ghostly debut with stories that sit at the intersections of dread, abjection, and horror. The tales are intertwined and linked like a chain of dried daisies or butterfly legs. Someone you used to know is on trial for murder. You work at a funeral home. Your dead grandmother calls you on the phone. You pin and preserve butterflies on a corkboard as a strange girl knocks on your door. You put a bike lock on the fridge. You sleepwalk. You attend a party. You get sick. You get an IV infusion. You don’t get better. You shoulder check and find a body buckled into the back seat. These stories show that you don’t need a house to be haunted— the body can do that all on its own.

Genres: Horror

184 pages, Paperback

Published May 2, 2023

About the author

Amy LeBlanc is a PhD candidate in English and creative writing at the University of Calgary. Amy's debut poetry collection, I know something you don’t know, was published with Gordon Hill Press in March 2020 and was long listed for the ReLit Award and selected as a finalist for the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry. Her novella, Unlocking, was published by the University of Calgary Press in June 2021 and was a finalist for the Trade Fiction Book of the Year through the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. Amy’s first short story collection Homebodies was published in spring 2023 with Great Plains Publications in their Enfield & Wizenty imprint, and her second full-length poetry collection, I used to live here, is forthcoming with Gordon Hill Press in spring 2025. Amy’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Room, Arc, Canadian Literature, and the Literary Review of Canada among others. She is the author of three chapbooks of poetry—most recently, Undead Juliet at the Museum, which was published with ZED Press in August 2021. Amy is a recipient of the 2020 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award and a CGS-D Award for her doctoral research into fictional representations of chronic illness and gothic spaces. She is a 2022 Killam Laureate.

Reviews

[Quin Lancaster · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really awesome short story collection, I don’t think there was a single one I disliked which is a rare find! The writing is so visceral it made me squirm to read some of the descriptions of self injections and corpses.
I think this would be great for anyone who liked How High We Go In The Dark or Caitlyn Doughty’s writing.
Also love a Calgary writer!

[Anne Logan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw a brief mention of the short story collection Homebodies by Amy LeBlanc somewhere online, and I decided I just HAD to read it for my spooky October reading series. It’s harder to find Halloween-themed books by small or independent presses, so I’m quite pleased and excited to introduce this Calgary-based author to a wider audience. It’s a short collection, but very unnerving, and although there aren’t any Halloween-specific stories, you can definitely classify this is as spooky reading.

Book Summary

Homebodies is made up of 16 short stories, some linked, some stand-alone. They are divided into three sections: The Fox (in the house), The Fever Dream (in the house), and The Body (in the house). Each section loosely follows a theme: animals, a virus, and the human body. Most of the stories are told in a first person perspective with the linked stories jumping from one character to another between them. As far as I could tell, no two stories were told from the same character’s perspective, although The Fever Dream section all clearly mentions the same people and their relation to this new virus that produces strange bruising on people’s bodies. Some stories are very short, encompassing short paragraphs that read like a longer poem only lasting a few pages, while some stories detail one person’s life, including previous memories they had and their present day challenges. “Bruised Plums” describes a woman living in the house her deceased grandmother left to her, which is clearly haunted. “Cherry Pit” is about another young woman who is a mortician. It details moments of her childhood as an explanation of why she chose this unique career path. “The Fridge Light” doesn’t incorporate supernatural elements, it’s about a young woman with an eating disorder and her struggle to relate to her mother on one of her unannounced visits. The best word to describe each story in this collection is: unnerving.

My Thoughts

I want to get my niggling complaint about this collection out of the way; it was uneven. The shorter stories weren’t as effective, and could have easily been cut. For such a short page count, 16 separate stories felt like too much, and unnecessary. The longer stories are where this author truly shined, and I found myself becoming absorbed into the little world she had created for them. Strangely enough, the set of ‘virus’ tales were my favourite. It’s a time / retelling that is meant to parallel Covid, but different in a few distinct ways, the most important being the physical manifestation of the illness on a person’s body. She describes someone going to the grocery store and realizing many of the shelves were empty, something she had never seen before, and those of us in North America will likely relate to this scene. While in line she meets a creepy man who tells her (twice) that he’s a lepidopterist who works with butterflies, and the next story is told from that man’s perspective as he pins butterfly bodies to a board. It’s hard to say why, but the fact this man repeated what his job was in the span of a few seconds (which the woman then reminds him he already told her) is one of the most unnerving parts of this whole story. Why does he do that? We never find out why, but this brilliant detail moves the story into even more uncomfortable territory.

There is no shortage of small children discovering dead animal bodies in this book, perhaps this is where the title of the collection come from, because in most cases they bring them home. There is a blending of eerie things that we readily accept in this world (being a mortician for example) with things that may consider crossing the line into ‘too creepy’, and this is where LeBlanc takes the reader, balancing us between the two, testing as to how far we are willing to let our imaginations go. And nothing outwardly horrific happens in this book; we never witness zombies stumbling around, instead, there are seemingly normal occurrences of a person sitting at a table and eating that we know can’t be real because of prior knowledge of their death.

Aside from my minor complaint above, I really enjoyed this collection. It was the perfect book to get me into the spooky mood, and I recommend it for those who don’t enjoy horror, but a chilling atmosphere to keep them on edge.

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[BrownSugarSnickerDoodle · Rating 5 out of 5]

after finishing homebodies, the only thing i can really say is... wow.

this was fantastic.

this was my first time reading a short story collection, but it set an extremely high bar for any future reads. while i wouldn't call them horror short stories exactly, as i honestly didn't find any of them outwardly horrifying, leblanc shows a complete mastery of creating tension and suspense in just a few pages in each and every one of these tales.

the writing was fantastic. every single metaphor was exquisitely crafted and perfectly designed to get under your skin - literally. there wasn't a single wasted word throughout the entire collection, and leblanc captures your attention like casting a spell until the end of each story, which is always left off in the perfect place. i started this book at the beginning of january, but put it on hold for a while as other books took up my time - which i sorely regret, as this collection was just incredible.

every single one of these stories hit the mark - but here are some of my favourites.

twisted: twisted was an extremely strong opener for homebodies. the sense of dread that formed in my stomach as i attempted to piece together what happened is so unlike anything i've experienced before. even though it's been weeks since i first read this, i'm still thinking about the premise, imagery, the characters - everything.

something blue: the story beginning the brief interlude featuring "the cerulean fever", an obvious allusion to covid-19 referenced in several stories. this story was another show of leblanc's prowess with creating enchanting tension. all of the little details ultimately came together to form a bigger picture that i just can't stop thinking about. even though nothing really scary happened, just this collection of memories and feelings and moments in time, and the overarching mystery that unravels over the course of the few pages, were so hauntingly memorable.

cherry pit: another story further developing the cerulean fever. the connections between this story and something blue were so fun to piece together - tell me why i actually kicked my feet when i read "the body can't metabolise blue". insane.

body fluid spill kit: a wonderful story to close out the collection. while it just focuses on a few short moments, they were just so morbidly fascinating that i can't help but love every word leblanc strung together here. the story is centered around the character evelyn's trip to the principal's office to discuss her (for lack of a better term here) insane unhinged demon child mia - the same morning she finds a body in her car. mia was honestly delightful, because why was i actually giggling while reading this. this story is, surprisingly, an interesting exploration into the relationship between mia, evelyn, and her mother, and ultimately leaves you wondering whether evelyn should ever be trusted at all. i want to start analyzing this story - irls, don't be surprised when i end up writing a critical analytical essay on body fluid spill kit 😩

amy leblanc's homebodies was of a uniquely astounding quality. i don't know what i was quite expecting coming in, but all i can say after finishing this is that there's only one rating i can possibly give it - 5 stars.

[Amalia · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars !!
Spooktacular stories that drew me in and had me hanging on until the end.