![]() ![]() There are a few instances where more ambiguity would be welcome, yet Milk Blood Heat is largely notable for its resistance to catharsis, and its bold play with abrupt endings and shorn down perspective. In these stories, the emotional and existential have not transcended the primal, they are found deep within it – the complexity of human experience forged in an interiority that is both physical and metaphysical, the body irrevocably entangled with the mind’s delicate business of grief, ambivalence, and want. Surfaces are sticky with salt and sun, food slick with oil, the scent of another person thrumming through the air. Moniz’s writing crackles with sensuality and the searing heat of the Southern summer, firmly locating every action, every brief thought within the emanations of the tangible world. ![]() Moniz’s hypnotic collection of short stories, the body is a lascivious, disobedient thing, a crucible for her Black female protagonists’ latent, unspoken desires and fears. A mother attempts to navigate the rift in her family in the aftermath of an almost affair. A young woman mourns her miscarriage, while another hesitates, bewildered at the new life inside her. ![]() Two girls mix blood with milk, drinking the bowl dry to cement their porous friendship. ![]()
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