Femgore: why romcoms are out in women’s fiction – and cannibalism is in

Name: Femgore.

Age: Hot (off the press).

And I’m thinking, from the name, that it might have something to do with women … As opposed to an obsession with thigh bones, correct.

And blood? As opposed to Al Gore. Very good. And let’s add murder, cannibalism, body horror, obsession, rage …

Lovely. Are we talking about Friday night out in a town centre near you? Literary genre, mate.

I thought it was all about romantasy these days? Sex’n’dragons? Romantasy’s soooo 2024, keep up.

What about Rebecca Yarros? True, the latest in her Empyrean series is breaking all sorts of records.

Cosy crime, too. Correct – looking at you Richard “Thursday Murder Club” Osman.

And the return of the romcom. Also correct – looking at you Emily “Funny Story” Henry. Femgore is more interesting though.

Hardly new, though, is it? Women getting killed, yawn. No, this is where femgore is different. We’re not talking about female victimhood, exploitation and fetishisation, but a reaction to that.

Listening now. Go on. Publisher Romilly Morgan described to Cosmopolitan magazine a world created by women “in which they are the ones in control, playing with the exact mundane and everyday brutality they have been exposed to for decades”.

Yay! Revenge! No, it’s more interesting than that – not just about women getting back at the patriarchy but also “the complicated relationships between ourselves, and our bodies and with other women, too.”

Ooh. Examples please! So you’ve got The Lamb, by Lucy Rose, about a tricky mother and daughter relationship …

A bit like Bernardine Evaristo’s Booker-winning Girl, Woman, Other then? Yeah, kinda, except they’re both cannibals, and Mama picks up “strays” and … well, eats them. The opening sentence is: “On my fourth birthday, I plucked six severed fingers from the shower drain.”

Victorian Psycho by Virginia Fetto

Mmm. Not a million miles away from Eliza Clark’s Boy Parts, a trailblazer for the genre when it was published in 2020, about a woman who picks up men in Tesco and photographs them in compromising positions.

Every little helps! Then coming out this month alone you’ve got Kylie Lee Baker’s Bat Eater …

Only bats! That’s almost disappointing, after boy parts … Other wholesome titles include Emma Van Stratten’s This Immaculate Body, Monika Kim’s The Eyes are the Best Part and Virginia Feito’s Victorian Psycho, which is also out this month …

My favourite kind of psycho! Already a book of the year from our own Lucy Mangan, and it’s only February.

Do say: “You’ll find them on that shelf over there, between fairytales and cookbooks.”

Don’t say: “Nah, you’re all right. I’ll take the latest in the Thursday Murder Club series instead, thanks.”