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mamthew42's review
5.0
A friend alerted me to the upcoming September release of Andrew Joseph White's new YA novel, Compound Fracture, about a socialist trans boy in West Virginia. And me being me, I was so fucking excited for a trans Appalachian book - a SOCIALIST trans Appalachian book no less - that the very next day I asked our library's Youth department to order the book. They did me one better and also ordered both White's other books as well, which is how I picked up his 2023 horror novel, The Spirit Bares Its Teeth.
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth is set in an alternate Victorian England. A few decades previously, certain people developed the ability to commune with the dead, sensing where restless spirits may be and opening portals to a spirit plane to see and interact with those spirits. This being the 19th century, even though spirit-channeling is a fairly recent phenomenon, an entire hierarchy and industry has already been built up around the practice. Speakers use their abilities to facilitate imperialist endeavors, forbid women with the ability from practicing it, and - as the ability is hereditary - jealously guard bloodlines through arranged marriages and courtship rituals.
Protagonist Silas Bell is a 16-year-old autistic trans man with spirit-channeling abilities who has already been engaged to a viscount without his input. When his attempt to escape and build a new life for himself goes wrong, he's caught and diagnosed with "veil sickness." "Veil Sickness" is a fabricated illness, like hysteria or drapetomania, allegedly contracted by women who channel the dead, making them headstrong and self-assured. In actuality, as Silas quickly discovers, it's an excuse to institutionalize women who don't easily conform to the societal rules the Speakers are trying to force on them. He's institutionalized with several girls his age in Braxton's Finishing School and Sanitorium, an asylum with the sole purpose of reshaping these girls into easily controllable wives to their powerful fiancées, where he's forced to girlmode for his own safety. It's a complex premise, as you can probably tell from my clear difficulties summarizing it clearly and concisely, but damn is it a compelling one. The novel reads a lot like the final act of R. F. Kuang's Babel, when the illusions and comforts of Oxford have peeled away and all that's left is the violence, the systemic power, and the paralyzing enormity of the conflict between the need to do something about it against the need to keep your own body and mind safe.
Silas is a great protagonist. He's clever, self-assured, and analytical, but traumatized in ways that translate into an inability to act or stand up for himself when in danger. He is, as mentioned earlier, trans and autistic, but as a 19th century character, he doesn't have the language for either of those. Rather, he knows he's uncomfortable making eye contact and finds comfort in repetitive motions like flapping his arms or rocking. He understands that there are layers of subtext he tends to miss, and he often doesn't see the point in cultural rituals with no basis in a lived reality. He also knows he is a man but knows that he doesn't fit the biological criteria culturally associated with men. Over the course of the novel, he meets a cis non-verbal autistic adult and a neurotypical trans woman, and those examples help him to realize that these two aspects of himself aren't part of the same thing - that someone can be one without necessarily being the other - and that realization helps him develop a more complete understanding of himself.
Silas dreams of working as a surgeon and has some training in surgery, so he sees much of the world through an anatomical lens - these are the arteries, these muscles are why this person can move in this way, this is how we need to clean an injury to lessen someone's pain. He was also "tutored" out of acting autistic, forced to sit still and look people in the eye on threat of physical punishment, to a point that he always has a voice in his head that he imagines as a rabbit telling him what he "should" be doing, how he "should" be behaving, how he "should" be thinking. These lenses - the surgeon and the rabbit - war with each other for dominance over how Silas responds to the world around him.
I didn't read this book in one sitting but I found myself constantly wishing I was. I kept it at work and read it during breaks, and pretty much any time I wasn't reading it I found myself itching to be reading it, just to know if Silas would be safe. It's a very tense, often brutal book, and Silas is almost always in some form of danger. I often caught myself grinding my teeth or bobbing my leg over anxiety for Silas. More than once, I dreamt about whether Silas would be able to escape his life for a better one.
White is incredibly skilled at wielding suspense, but this anxiety was more than simply a response to the suspense; it was heightened by the understanding that this was life for many people. Obviously the ghost stuff is fictional, but there's a long history of pathologies fabricated for the purpose of controlling people who wouldn't conform to societal standards, with torturous and even deadly "treatments" for those pathologies. Whether purposeful or not, Silas's neurodivergence served as a reminder that we still haven't outgrown this phenomenon; plenty of folks are put through torture because we've pathologized the ways that they engage with the world.
Maybe the most thought-provoking part of the novel is a part when Silas mentions that "Veil Sickness" is a very new creation, fabricated within the last few years. The "treatments" for it have no medical publications behind them yet, and the definition of the sickness even changes several times over the course of the novel so that it can apply to characters who need controlling but don't fit the criteria. He wonders briefly if this is how it is for all these pathologies, and damn. The treatments for "hysteria" were cruel and brutal, ranging from surgeries to forced isolation, to rape. But there had to have been a time when doctors were applying those treatments without having been told about them, when there wasn't a societal and medical architecture built around the practices, when someone just wanted to cut someone open or lock her in a room or sexually assault her, and he used "hysteria" as an excuse to act on that.
Even now that the novel's done and I don't have to worry about Silas anymore, I think I'll be grinding my teeth over that thought for months to come.
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth is set in an alternate Victorian England. A few decades previously, certain people developed the ability to commune with the dead, sensing where restless spirits may be and opening portals to a spirit plane to see and interact with those spirits. This being the 19th century, even though spirit-channeling is a fairly recent phenomenon, an entire hierarchy and industry has already been built up around the practice. Speakers use their abilities to facilitate imperialist endeavors, forbid women with the ability from practicing it, and - as the ability is hereditary - jealously guard bloodlines through arranged marriages and courtship rituals.
Protagonist Silas Bell is a 16-year-old autistic trans man with spirit-channeling abilities who has already been engaged to a viscount without his input. When his attempt to escape and build a new life for himself goes wrong, he's caught and diagnosed with "veil sickness." "Veil Sickness" is a fabricated illness, like hysteria or drapetomania, allegedly contracted by women who channel the dead, making them headstrong and self-assured. In actuality, as Silas quickly discovers, it's an excuse to institutionalize women who don't easily conform to the societal rules the Speakers are trying to force on them. He's institutionalized with several girls his age in Braxton's Finishing School and Sanitorium, an asylum with the sole purpose of reshaping these girls into easily controllable wives to their powerful fiancées, where he's forced to girlmode for his own safety. It's a complex premise, as you can probably tell from my clear difficulties summarizing it clearly and concisely, but damn is it a compelling one. The novel reads a lot like the final act of R. F. Kuang's Babel, when the illusions and comforts of Oxford have peeled away and all that's left is the violence, the systemic power, and the paralyzing enormity of the conflict between the need to do something about it against the need to keep your own body and mind safe.
Silas is a great protagonist. He's clever, self-assured, and analytical, but traumatized in ways that translate into an inability to act or stand up for himself when in danger. He is, as mentioned earlier, trans and autistic, but as a 19th century character, he doesn't have the language for either of those. Rather, he knows he's uncomfortable making eye contact and finds comfort in repetitive motions like flapping his arms or rocking. He understands that there are layers of subtext he tends to miss, and he often doesn't see the point in cultural rituals with no basis in a lived reality. He also knows he is a man but knows that he doesn't fit the biological criteria culturally associated with men. Over the course of the novel, he meets a cis non-verbal autistic adult and a neurotypical trans woman, and those examples help him to realize that these two aspects of himself aren't part of the same thing - that someone can be one without necessarily being the other - and that realization helps him develop a more complete understanding of himself.
Silas dreams of working as a surgeon and has some training in surgery, so he sees much of the world through an anatomical lens - these are the arteries, these muscles are why this person can move in this way, this is how we need to clean an injury to lessen someone's pain. He was also "tutored" out of acting autistic, forced to sit still and look people in the eye on threat of physical punishment, to a point that he always has a voice in his head that he imagines as a rabbit telling him what he "should" be doing, how he "should" be behaving, how he "should" be thinking. These lenses - the surgeon and the rabbit - war with each other for dominance over how Silas responds to the world around him.
I didn't read this book in one sitting but I found myself constantly wishing I was. I kept it at work and read it during breaks, and pretty much any time I wasn't reading it I found myself itching to be reading it, just to know if Silas would be safe. It's a very tense, often brutal book, and Silas is almost always in some form of danger. I often caught myself grinding my teeth or bobbing my leg over anxiety for Silas. More than once, I dreamt about whether Silas would be able to escape his life for a better one.
White is incredibly skilled at wielding suspense, but this anxiety was more than simply a response to the suspense; it was heightened by the understanding that this was life for many people. Obviously the ghost stuff is fictional, but there's a long history of pathologies fabricated for the purpose of controlling people who wouldn't conform to societal standards, with torturous and even deadly "treatments" for those pathologies. Whether purposeful or not, Silas's neurodivergence served as a reminder that we still haven't outgrown this phenomenon; plenty of folks are put through torture because we've pathologized the ways that they engage with the world.
Maybe the most thought-provoking part of the novel is a part when Silas mentions that "Veil Sickness" is a very new creation, fabricated within the last few years. The "treatments" for it have no medical publications behind them yet, and the definition of the sickness even changes several times over the course of the novel so that it can apply to characters who need controlling but don't fit the criteria. He wonders briefly if this is how it is for all these pathologies, and damn. The treatments for "hysteria" were cruel and brutal, ranging from surgeries to forced isolation, to rape. But there had to have been a time when doctors were applying those treatments without having been told about them, when there wasn't a societal and medical architecture built around the practices, when someone just wanted to cut someone open or lock her in a room or sexually assault her, and he used "hysteria" as an excuse to act on that.
Even now that the novel's done and I don't have to worry about Silas anymore, I think I'll be grinding my teeth over that thought for months to come.
natt_alie's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
moondrew's review
5.0
Give me trans and autistic rep, blood/gore and victorian rage with a good plot and I'm sold.
jessawilson's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
bea_123's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
dogearedbooks's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
At 35 years old, this is the first time I've seen myself so fully in a character. I cannot explain the wealth of emotions I feel reading through Silas' eyes and knowing, even for a fictional character, I am not alone.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Gore, Medical trauma, Medical content, Physical abuse, Transphobia, Child abuse, Blood, and Murder
Moderate: Confinement, Miscarriage, Sexual assault, and Pregnancy
Minor: Rape and Adult/minor relationship
awkwardkatalyst's review
3.0
Not sure it was a good idea to have a trans character also be autistic(? I think thats what she's supposed to be anyway) as it feels like the two characteristics are linked. This is only saved by the other trans character that isnt autistic.
w0rmmoon's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
mboicekeith's review against another edition
dark
informative
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror