‘The Weak Spot’ by Sophie Mackintosh

The first time I read this story, I could literally feel my brain firing with ideas. Through the invention of a dystopian world in which teenage girls are trained to murder men from a young age in order to protect themselves, Sophie Mackintosh examines the fine line between danger and power. Though the girls in this story take murder classes (otherwise known as “Specialised Life Skills for Girls”), the world they live in will never allow them to be treated as equals.

First published online by Granta, 2016, and available to read here

‘Grace’ by Sophie Mackintosh

I’ve recently read Mackintosh’s novel The Water Cure (forthcoming in May), and this shares some of the novel’s themes – ill-understood dangers, the burdens placed on women’s bodies, momentous and terrifying metaphysical decisions – as well as its measured, clear, tones and almost balletic precision of pacing. Mackintosh’s writing makes me feel as if the air around her words is cleaner and clearer than before. I love the sense of disorientation her writing produces, and her fearlessness in resisting over-explanation.

In The White Review, April 2016. Read it online here