The preface of She’s Always Hungry, Newcastle author Eliza Clark’s first short fiction collection, points readers to an afterword – specifically a list of potentially upsetting themes or detail contained therein. This is public-spirited, avoids spoilers, and allows anyone who doesn’t believe in ‘that sort of thing’ to simply ignore it. Not an overtly brutal read, indeed the strength is often in what Clark leaves unsaid, viscera and psychological unease are both frequent features of these 11 stories.

The author achieved brisk notoriety via 2020 debut novel Boy Parts, with some focus on Clark’s working-class background and the authenticity that confers. Some of She’s Always Hungry’s settings render this less relevant by virtue of taking place in outer space, or a post-apocalyptic future, though as a sci-fi author Clark remains preoccupied with very ‘contemporary Western human’ types of behavioural peculiarities. Other stories here are set in (what seems to be) Communist-era Eastern Europe or Santa Carla, the fictional town in The Lost Boys.

Varied in genre and with the sense Clark is experimenting at times, not every chapter here lands: one, written as a series of reviews of a confounding takeaway, is far too long for something with no real story arc. What she remains exceptionally good at is writing about, and in the voice of, young British women – from Willow the haughty goth barmaid (and her besotted male coworker) to Poppy the acne-scarred teen with an older drug-dealing boyfriend.