Freakslaw

Freakslaw

Summary

Discover the dazzling new queer literary horror novel about chosen family and the risks it takes to become the person you want to be.

‘The glittery punk offspring of Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love and Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus.’ Chelsea G. Summers, author of A Certain Hunger


A travelling funfair of seductive troublemakers arrive in a repressed Scottish town. What could possibly go wrong?

It’s the summer of ’97 and the Scottish town of Pitlaw is itching for change.

Enter the Freakslaw – a travelling funfair populated by deviant queers, a contortionist witch, the most powerful fortune teller, and other architects of mayhem. It doesn’t take long for the Freakslaw folk to infiltrate Pitlaw’s grey world, where the town’s teenagers – none more so than Ruth and Derek – are seduced by neon charms and the possibility of escape.

But beneath it all, these newcomers are harbouring a darker desire: revenge.

And as tensions reach fever pitch between the stoic locals and the dazzling intruders, a violence that’s been simmering for centuries is about to be unleashed…


Praise for Freakslaw:

‘A wild, fun house of horrors – whip smart, the sharpest writing, funny, visceral and filled with vengeance. I loved it!’ Rachelle Atalla, author of The Pharmacist

‘Delightful, delirious and transgressive… a queer punk masterpiece and we should all be so lucky to have our lives turned upside down by a visit to the Freakslaw.’ Leon Craig, author of Parallel Hells

Wild, raunchy, brutal – a madcap funhouse with heart.’ Liska Jacobs, author of The Pink Hotel

Reviews

  • A shimmering blade of a book. Every sentence is honed for high delight — a captivating cast of characters, dazzling language, and so funny — but there's a smart and dangerous bite to all the campy, glittery glory. Freakslaw makes space for feminist, queer anger... and shows it a great time. We've never been so happy to roll up, roll up.
    Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta, authors of The View Was Exhausting

About the author

Jane Flett

Jane Flett is a Scottish writer who lives in Berlin. Her fiction has been commissioned for BBC Radio 4, featured in Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, Highly Commended in the Bridport Prize and performed at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. She's a recipient of the Scottish Book Trust New Writer Award, the New Orleans Writing Residency and the Berlin Senate Stipend for non-German literature. Freakslaw is her first novel.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more