Review: There Once Was a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbour's Baby by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

Proper weird, this one. If you want contemporary tales that are a little bit freaky, this bird is probably your go-to gal.

Described as 'scary fairy tales', this slim collection of short stories covers some pretty broad ground. From the depressingly realistic scenario of a woman with mental health issues setting traps for her young neighbour's cute baby, to the wildly imaginative tale of twin sisters who are cursed to share one enormous body, Petrushevskaya veers from the bizarre, impossible world of the Brothers Grimm to the sort of mundane viciousness you see on the news every day.

Most of the stories have some sort of supernatural element, but not all. One is a rather unsatisfying snapshot of life among persecuted Russian peasants who are forced to scratch out a living in the forest, while another follows the attempts of a mother to set her wayward son on the right track in life, only to realise that she has no idea what that track might look like.

Whether her tale is magical or more pedestrian, the common thread that seems to run through Petrushevskaya's accomplished stories is an acceptance of life's disappointments and frustrations. The darkest and most disturbing horror story can leave you feeling entertained and even quite uplifted if it is safely removed from the normal experiences and truths of every day life. But this writer does not allow the reader to do that. Her themes seem to originate from the inescapable downside of being alive - the rejected lovers, the dead marriages, the loneliness, the crushed self-esteem, the unfairness of politics, the broken promises, the forgotten dreams. And god, that's depressing.

I'm glad I read this book because Petrushevskaya is a highly gifted writer and her ability to explore political and emotional themes through her work is evident. But I'm not sure I'll be seeking out any more of her stuff just yet. Sometimes you are in the mood for escapism and, despite the fairy tale label, Petrushevskaya's fiction is just a little bit too grounded in fact.