Edryd Bowmer

It’s rare for a book to start with calling a baby ugly. Yet on the first page of J.D. Beresford’s 1911 novel The Hampdenshire Wonder, our narrator is joined in his railway compartment: I looked up when the woman entered my compartment, though I did not notice the name of the station. I caught sight of the baby she was carrying, and turned back to my book. I thought the child was a freak, an abnormality; and such things disgust me. This baby is the titular Hampdenshire Wonder.

This essay details a modest exegesis on Clive Barker’s gospels of the monstrous body. Read together, Barker’s novellas The Hellbound Heart (1986) and Cabal (1988) make a twofold argument: That the monstrous body is in fact monstrous, and that this monstrous body possesses a power which can’t be co-opted by hegemonic institutions. Rather than allow themselves to be used and discarded by the state, Barker’s monsters construct an alternative society: the mutantopia.

They said to try cleansing bad energy from my living space. This made sense, the labyrinth is past stale. They said to try removing my toxins. This made sense, I have always been told That the problem is in my body. They told me to meditate. All I do is meditate. Each quiet meal a prayer And each blind walk Through twisting passageways a trust fall, And one full of contemplation. At risk of hubris: I’ve contemplated it all. They said to read my fortune and flaws in the stars.