Woodworm

The house breathes.

The house contains bodies and secrets.

The house is visited by ghosts, by angels that line the roof like insects, and by saints that burn the bedsheets with their haloes.

Nobody ever leaves.

The house was built by a small-time hustler as a means of controlling his wife, and even after so many years, their daughter and her granddaughter can't leave.

They may be witches or they may just be angry, but when the mysterious disappearance of a young boy from a local wealthy family draws unwanted press attention, the two isolated women, already subjects of public scorn, combine forces with the spirits that haunt them in pursuit of something that resembles justice.

Layla Martinez's eerie debut novel Woodworm is class-conscious horror that drags generations of monsters into the sun.

Review: An incredible reinvention of the haunted house as a place marked by history's ghosts. * Financial Times *
This supernatural story of an outcast girl and her grandmother lays bare intergenerational horror, feminine rage and the taking back of power. * Stylist *
Wonderfully bizarre and ceaselessly creepy... filled with strangeness, and delivered with sharp and fast prose. Through it all, Martinez explores larger topics of class resentment and the lingering effects of evil. Intergenerational trauma and monsters share the spotlight in this terrific debut. * New York Times *
A claustrophobic slice of domestic horror... With impressive economy and hurtling intensity, Woodworm emits a howl of fury against entrenched inequality and enforced servitude, and the constraints they place on working-class women * Times Literary Supplement *
A house of women and shadows, built from poetry and revenge. Layla Martinez's tense, chilling novel tells a story of specters, class war, violence and loneliness, as naturally as if the witches had dictated this lucid, terrible nightmare to Martinez themselves. -- Mariana Enriquez, author of OUR SHARE OF THE NIGHT
A modern fairytale. * Harper's Bazaar *
If you're in the mood to read a story about a haunted house that will make your skin crawl, then I cannot recommend Woodworm enough. This book has everything, from witches to saints to angels that look like praying mantises to some of the most unsettling portrayals of ghosts that I've come across in a long time. * Polygon *
Martinez's debut novel takes cabin fever to the max in this story of a grandmother, granddaughter, and their haunted house, set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War. As the story unfolds, so do the house's secrets, the two women must learn to collaborate with the malevolent spirits living among them. * The Millions *
A sophisticated ghost story...breathes new life into the classic haunted house motif through Martinez's vivid exploration of generational trauma, violence, misogyny, and class. Readers won't soon forget this striking tale. * Publishers Weekly *
Martinez's prose is fairly straightforward with a menacing snarl....There are interesting dynamics simmering underneath, not least the palpable sense of inherited trauma and the oppressive nature of inequality....A ghost story buried in a family closet laden with skeletons and sins. * Kirkus Reviews *
It pounces on us from the first line and doesn't let go until the last, if it lets go. The Gothic revival continues to expand and produce great works. -- Edmundo Paz Soldan, author of NORTE
Woodworm is a true literary event. -- Belen Gopegui, author of STAY THIS DAY AND NIGHT WITH ME
This book is the revenge of an intergenerational wound, the embrace of barbarity, the loss of morals when trying to protect your loved ones. This book is the miserable and the wretched saying 'enough is enough.' -- Alana S. Portero, author of BAD HABIT



Author Biography:

Layla Martinez (Author)
Layla Martinez is a writer and translator from Madrid. She writes about music for El Salto, and about television for La Ultima Hora. Since 2014 she has co-directed the independent publisher Antipersona. Woodworm is her first novel.

Sophie Hughes (Translator)
Sophie Hughes is the translator of over twenty novels by authors such as Fernanda Melchor, Alia Trabucco Zeran and Enrique Vila-Matas. She has been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and the Dublin Literary Award, and longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature. In 2021, she was awarded the Queen Sofia Translation Prize.

Annie McDermott (Translator)
Annie McDermott's translations from Spanish and Portuguese include works by Mario Levrero, Selva Almada, Ariana Harwicz and Lidia Jorge. In 2022, she was awarded the Premio Valle-Inclan for her translation of Wars of the Interior by Joseph Zarate.