I am delighted to have Tracy Fahey here to talk about the rerelease of The Unheimlich Manoeuvre. Her collection has been described as domestic horror but it’s anything but mundane. Her writing has a very claustrophobic quality which heightens its unsease. Large events that affect whole communities are focused through the microscope of personal interactions, which are beautifully observed. Although there are twists, Tracy Fahey never plays for cheap shocks. I thoroughly recommend her work. – Priya Sharma
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In March 2020 I’m delighted to announce the uncanny resurrection of my first, beloved collection, The Unheimlich Manoeuvre in a 
deluxe edition, and the arrival of a new chapbook, Unheimlich Manoeuvres in the Dark, both released by the Sinister Horror Company.
Originally published in limited hardback edition by Alex Davis of Boo Books, The Unheimlich Manoeuvre was a collection of fourteen tales situated within the broad parameter of home. In 2017 it was nominated for Best Collection in the British Fantasy Awards, and one of its stories, ‘Walking The Borderlines’ was also longlisted by Ellen Datlow for The Year’s Best Horror Volume 8. The next year, in 2018, it was picked up by the Sinister Horror Company and rereleased in paperback and ebook.
Surely that’s as much life as any book can hope for? But like its unheimlich Freudian source, it seem that this is a book that specialises in the uncanny return…
I’ve always been fascinated by tales of unease grounded in the home. Classic stories like Charlotte Gilman Perkins’ The Yellow Wallpaper or Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask Of Amontillado haunt me with their mundane settings where horrifying events happen. Even after the re-release of The Unheimlich Manoeuvre, I continued to weave horror that arose from the subversion of domestic intimacy; the distortion of home through the lens of physical and mental illness, the intense disquiet occasioned by paranormal shadows within a safe space. In late 2019, in conversation with my excellent editor, Justin Park, we decided to bring out a third, deluxe edition of The Unheimlich Manoeuvre. This handsome edition, out on Friday the 13th of March 2020,will include a new essay, ‘Creative Evocations of Uncanny Domestic Space,’ five new stories, a print and piece entitled ‘Remembering Wildgoose Lodge,’ and complete story notes on all nineteen stories in this edition.
It was at this point that my resourceful editor pointed out that through the popularity of the second edition many readers already owned a copy of The Unheimlich Manoeuvre. For these Constant Readers, he proposed creating a 100-page chapbook of the new and additional material. And so the gloriously punny Unheimlich Manoeuvres In The Dark was born.
These are beautiful objects. I love the original design for The Unheimlich Manoeuvre; black, fractured home on a green background. For Unheimlich Manoeuvres In The Dark, the Sinister Horror Company have neatly reversed the colours, so the little green house becomes isolated in the gathering dark. For the deluxe edition, the wraparound back cover contains within it the watermarked version of the Wildgoose Lodge print inside the book, a lovely visual reflection on the lingering quality of the uncanny.
As an author, I couldn’t be more delighted with this strange, uncanny rebirth of The Unheimlich Manoeuvre, and its sinister doppelganger, Unheimlich Manoeuvres In The Dark. Grateful thanks to my midwife, Justin Park, as always, and I can only hope that others will grow to love these weird book-children as much as I do.
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Tracy Fahey is an Irish Gothic writer. In 2017, her debut collection The Unheimlich Manoeuvre was shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award, 2020 sees the release of the third deluxe edition of this collection, together with a chapbook, Unheimlich Manoeuvres In The Dark, both published by the Sinister Horror Company. Eight of her short stories have been longlisted by Ellen Datlow for The Best Horror of the Year; her short story ‘That Thing I Did’ receiving an Honourable Mention in the latest volume. She is published in over twenty Irish, US and UK anthologies and her work has been reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement. Fahey holds a PhD on the Gothic in visual arts, and her non-fiction writing has been published in Irish, English, American, Italian, Dutch and Australian edited collections and journals. She has been awarded residencies in Ireland and Greece. Her first novel, The Girl in the Fort, was released by Fox Spirit Press in 2017. Her second collection, New Music For Old Rituals, was published in 2018 by Black Shuck Books. She is currently working on her third collection, I Spit Myself Out. Her website is at www.tracyfahey.com
priya sharma fiction 