The Hunger we Pass Down

For generations, I swallowed your family’s worst pain, all your worst memories, ignorant of all the trauma I have been forced to witness and carry.

Don’t you see? I deserve to live now, and you deserve to toil and decay.

Horror is absolutely seeing a renaissance at the moment. Maybe its a way for our collective consciousness to deal with the horrors of the political clusterfuck we’re forced to live in, or more simply we’re just in the rising phase of the ebb and flow of genre fiction. People like me who grew up on Stephen King and Tales from the Crypt are perhaps now of the age where we’re setting cultural sensibilities, while the internet means that unique voices and perspectives can make their way out of the slush pile and into messageboards and blogs. There’s a real increase in the amount of niche, unusual stories making their way into the mainstream thanks to smaller grassroots networks like tik toks and subreddits.

With that, horror has become far more sophisticated than the tropes of grisly corpses, vengeful spirits and homicidal cultists (though I fully concede that horror has always had some political aspects to it - see Night of the Living Dead, The Twilight Zone, etc. Cosmic horror feels bolstered by science and philosophy, not least helped by thinkers like Eugene Thacker and his works including In the Dust of this Planet. Horror has at times been enjoyable because the danger and fear comes from inexplicable forces, but modern horror often tries to put their finger on exactly where this fear comes from.

Popular modern horror writing builds on the foundations of predecessors by drawing on real subjects that themselves can be the source of everyday horror: race, gender, sexuality and poverty. There are distinctly feminist takes on horror, such as Bunny by Monica Awad, or The Eyes are the Best Part by Monika Kim. There are strong LGBTQ voices in horror at the moment, such as Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin and Monstrillio by Gerardo Samano Cordova. Race as social commentary also regularly features in horror, such as Beloved by Toni Morrison, or more recently The Ballad of Black Tom by Tiffany D Jackson.

What I’m trying to say in all this is that horror is not the shallow, superficial gorefest that it often has a bad rep for. Not to knock silly over the top fore fests, I’m a fan of blasting through 250 pages of slimy Bayou zombies and Satan exploding heads when I’m in the mood. But horror increasingly holds a dual purpose of discussing urgent and important ideas from new perspectives, filtered through the lens of dread, fear and revulsion. Conceptually, its an amazing device to engender empathy and connections with the writers ideas and subtext.

Which brings me finally onto The Hunger We Pass Down by Jennifer Sookfong Lee.

The Hunger We Pass Down follows Alice Chow, a single mum who runs a moderately successful online store for reusable nappies. Alice is deeply sad, finds it difficult to connect with anyone outside her immediate family, and has a significant drinking problem. Her house is a mess and she forgets to get food ready for her children. Then one morning, the chores are all done, her house is clean, and her children are fed. The same thing happens every day. All her jobs done without her knowledge of doing it. But at the same time glimpses of another person are seen in her house, her basement especially.

The novel spans four generations, though Alice’s story is the focus. What begins to emerge is the idea of a cursed family, of generational trauma passed through the female bloodline, with a mess of suicides, car accidents and inexplicable deaths along their ruined path.

The storyline begins in Hong Kong, where Alice’s great grandmother Gigi was taken as a child from the street and raped by the occupying Japanese forces in a military brothel for several years. From that moment, each mother in the family line was beset by tragedies and violence, each of them finding different ways to protect their daughters from the evils of the world and the inevitability of them experiencing trauma themselves. For as long as these traumas were not addressed, discussed, or confronted, the trauma continued to percolate. This is a perfect example of what horror fiction can achieve, a fictional (but largely plausible) story which explores the consequences of not dealing with our shit, literally manifesting in a supernatural force.

What I really enjoyed about The Hunger We Pass Down was the tenderness and empathy evident throughout, and the ambiguity of the traumas themselves. Alice’s grandmother was cruel to Alice’s mother because she believed it was the only thing to protect her from violent men, exploitation, and life itself. When her experiences and life is more clearly understood there is capacity to understand her mindset, even if there is little agreement with her approach.

Sookfong Lee weaves a story of multiple timelines really well, leaving it open to interpretation as to whether there are supernatural elements at all, or just entrenched trauma, unreliable memories and alcohol fuzz. Although the subject matter was incredibly heavy (and graphic at times) I wouldn’t say it ever felt excessive, titillating or prolonged. The horror was very much presented as such, but was helped by the character’s internal responses to their circumstances. For that reason, The Hunger We Pass Down felt a lot more humanistic and real than some other books I’ve read that cover similar topics.

The book was largely non-judgmental to perpetrators of violence and abuse, some of which is pretty graphic and upsetting. The female characters are largely accepting of their lot, the context of their environment and upbringing explaining the learned helplessness. There are few moments of good prevailing over evil, the best outcomes in this book were avoidance or escape. I think the book’s better for it though, nothing feels straightforward and nobody makes a perfect decision. I just went away feeling pretty sad, which is fine.

The Hunger We Pass Down was a tough read, it absolutely belongs on a horror shelf. I was surprised by the level of kindess and empathy in the story and really enjoyed the dysfunctional family dynamics, decisions and interactions felt real. I was worried that horror was entering a new phase of the ‘tragic lives’ genre my mum used to love so much becoming the new normal, but there’s a lot more than that going on here. Not least the importance of us thinking about adversity in childhood.

The Hunger We Pass Down is out on 7th January 2026. It is available for pre-order from Forbidden Planet. Thanks to NetGalley for the free review copy.