Fiction by Julia Elliott, reviewed by Hana S. Elysia
HELLIONS (Tin House)
Grotesque, ethereal, and at times utterly bizarre, Julia Elliott’s magical story collection Hellions is a call to the carnal. Connected by feelings of entrapment, each protagonist encounters the otherworldly in different forms. A woman is stalked by children who chant the coming of something sinister. A man encounters a witch who he can’t decide to kill or kiss. A group of teenagers witness a spectacle that leaves them craving another glimpse. And so on. These eleven entrancing pieces have left me dazed.
The title indicates the monstrous, often mischievous nature of creatures featured throughout the book, whether they’re people, animals, or something in-between. The anxiety they elicit is amplified by the stories’ settings, a blend of Southern and Gothic, wherein lie shrieking insects, miasmic weather, and buildings creaky with age. These details form a distinct space for the creatures to do as they please, as these lines from the titular story “Hellion” illustrate: “As cicadas chanted in the mystic heat, Dragon crawled out onto the grass and stretched to his full length, nearly three feet long, his spiked back slick with water. The glorious prehistoric reptile opened his mouth in a fanged grin.”
Although the collection’s timeline hops from the Middle Ages to modern-day, Elliott builds on consistent themes. What spoke to me were the repeated ideas of transformation and transcendence—body and spirit—that emerge even in stories with contrasting tones. For instance, the opening story “Bride” focuses on Wilda, a nun in a medieval convent who whips herself to be worthy of Christ. Pain becomes an intimate partner on her journey to piety as her body weakens with self-punishment, but it’s not until a plague rips through her convent that a peak moment of transformation occurs. When Wilda and her friend find a food stash left behind by a deceased nun, they indulge themselves in laughter and wine, as no one is around to reprimand them. This releases hunger in Wilda, not just for food, but for touch, a sexual realization likened to a monster in her belly. In response, she punishes herself further before she’s rewarded with transcendence: a vision that suggests more than the arrival of Christ.
The body-spirit theme appears again in the final story, which is aptly titled “All the Other Demons.” Here, the pages practically drip with Southern flare in a tale narrated by an unnamed adolescent. Her transformation comes through girlhood, preteen puberty, as she suffers for the sake of beauty, altering her appearance for fashion and boys. But when she becomes mesmerized by the horror film The Exorcist—specifically the main character, Regan, who’s possessed by a demon—a fire sparks in her, a spiritual awakening. I was intrigued by the duality between the narrator and Regan, the former a meek human who attempts beauty, the latter a powerful demon who exudes ugliness. I especially loved how Regan’s horrific look is emphasized by the setting in which the movie plays: a tense household the narrator yearns to escape from. Contributing to this unease are elements of the South—hazy heat that makes clothes stick, the gristly chew of fried fish—all of which intensify Regan’s image on the TV screen. Rather than being frightened, the narrator is captivated, and by the end, she starts down a path of transcendence when she chases a certain fantasy: one born from her growing fascination with devilry.
Although these two stories occur in different times and places, Elliott manages to infuse both the divine and demonic with an air of feminine freedom. Wilda’s transcendence in “Bride” is initiated by a vision of Christ, whereas the narrator’s in “All the Other Demons” is initiated by a satanic fantasy. This contrast is beautifully poignant, a synergistic parallel of two girls upholding faith in what they don’t fully understand—what’s unique to their identity—no matter where they’re from, and no matter when.
That’s what deeply resonates with me: how Elliott’s characters hold potential to transcend who they believe they are—moving beyond perceptions of self, becoming more than their surroundings. The book’s female characters shine in this regard, encouraging readers to picture a life without constraint, to push toward their desires, follow an instinctual pull. After reading, I found myself thinking about the transformative nature of each story, whether it appears in a protagonist or a side character. More so, I found myself thinking about my own potential to transform as I waited for any sign of hellions to guide me.
As in her previous works, Elliott combines mysticism with her education in cultural history, then grounds it in a strong sense of place, connecting to her Southern roots. In addition to her masterful genre-bending, I often gawked at Elliott’s prose and the rhythm with which she strings sentences together. Describing a character whose age fluctuates from young to old, she writes, “We were the only ones who’d glimpsed the heights of Cujo’s beauty and the depths of her hideousness…her abrupt morphing into miniature hagdom.” That buoyancy is balanced with an earthiness you can almost smell, only confirming how well Elliott embodies duality.
Yet what truly distinguishes her is patience. The ability to wait and listen, then pour out words without restraint. The result is lush language that mimics the overgrowth in her settings, as seen in “Flying”: “You remember the feast the monster fed you—tarts and cakes, mushrooms and flowers, tender songbirds with edible skeletons.” Each story is filled with similarly gorgeous prose, and easily stands alone, but taken together, the collection creates a kaleidoscope of glittering tonalities, tenses, and points of view. A sparkle of folklore here, dystopia there. Fairytale. Technology. To hell with simplicity.
Elliott has compelled me to expand my earthly boundaries, because, at its core, that’s what Hellions is about: reaching for more. Reaching beyond. Grasping for magic you thought you lost after childhood, prying apart your chest to see a heart pulsing with swamp water. Any fan of surrealism, fantasy, or body horror will find a home in these pages. So tear them open and slide in, smear your face with mud, and rise toward the moon to meet the wondrous and wild.
Hana S. Elysia has written stories about sisters with strange names, women bursting into flames, and zombies with a weird appetite. A professional dancer turned writer with a love for the eerie and ethereal, her work has appeared in Wow! Women on Writing, pacificREVIEW, Confluence, and elsewhere. She has won awards in fiction and nonfiction, and serves as an editor for Cleaver Magazine, where she enjoys reading multiple genres. More of her work can be found at hanaselysia.substack.com or on Instagram @hana.s.elysia.
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