Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom; Faber and Faber, 2019

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles.

Lips the colour of blood, the sun an unprecedented orange, train wheels that sound like ‘guilt, and guilt, and guilt’: these are just some of the things Mary Ventura begins to notice on her journey to the ninth kingdom.

‘But what is the ninth kingdom?’ she asks a kind-seeming lady in her carriage. ‘It is the kingdom of the frozen will,’ comes the reply. ‘There is no going back.’

Sylvia Plath’s strange, dark tale of independence over infanticide, written not long after she herself left home, grapples with mortality in motion.

Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.