Review: 'Hunger and Thirst' by Claire Fuller

Being a teenager is always messy. It is the best of times and the worst of times. It is especially bad, however, if you're not just haunted by childhood experiences but perhaps also by an active ghost. Hunger and Thirst is an intriguing exploration of art and female friendship that had me gripped. Thanks to Fig Tree and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pub. Date: 07/05/2026
Publisher: Penguin General; Fig Tree

1987: After a childhood trauma and years in and out of the care system, sixteen-year-old Ursula finds herself with a new job in the postroom of a local art school, a bed in a halfway house, and—delightfully— some new friends, including wild-child, Sue. When Ursula is invited to join a squat at The Underwood, a mysterious house whose owners met a terrible end, she can’t resist the promise of a readymade, hodgepodge family.

But as Sue’s behaviour and demands become more extreme, Ursula who has always been hungry—for food—and more importantly for love, acceptance and belonging, carries out her friend’s terrible dare. It's a decision that will haunt her for decades.

Thirty-six years later, Ursula is a renowned, reclusive sculptor living under a pseudonym in London when her identity is exposed by true-crime documentary-maker who is digging into an unsolved disappearance. But it is not only the filmmaker who has discovered Ursula’s whereabouts, and as her past catches up with her present, Ursula must work out whether the monsters are within her or without.

I have said it before and I will say it again: the Gothic is the best genre to explore trauma through. There is nothing like a crumbling house full of the ghost of the past to show that no man is an island and we all have a history. There is nothing like art created in a near fugue state to show the murky depths of a psyche. There is nothing like a doomed female friendship, forged through shared misery and betrayed secrets, to show how hungry we all truly are. Claire Fuller excels at all of this in Hunger and Thirst. I think the Gothic nature of the story is also enhanced by the back and forth between this murky, sticky past and the present, with its true crime journalists and cell phones. It is a somewhat jarring juxtaposition that speaks to how incoherent life can be, how the past and present can feel irreconcilable.  The Gothic always requires you to eventually face this abyss, to look into it and allow it to look right back at you. I find this an incredibly rewarding reading experience, although I also appreciate that it might now be for everyone.

In Hunger and Thirst we follow Ursula both as a sixteen-year old and almost fourty years later, when the things that happened in her childhood come back to haunt her. We meet teen-Ursula as she moves into a halfway house and starts a new job in the post room of an art school. Ursula is drawn to the art being created there, but also to her coworker Sue, who seems so confident and strong. We also flash back and forth to the adult Ursula, now a reclusive but famous artist, who is being hounded by a reporter who made a documentary about what happened all those years ago. This forces adult-Ursula to confront some of the things that happened, to think again about the years since and about her own role in it all. I want to remain super-vague about what actually happens, because I immensely enjoyed the way it all unfolded. When Hunger and Thirst leans most fully into its Gothicness, it is stunning. I loved the way Fuller plays with all the various forms you can be haunted in your life, by the little pieces of other lives and people that cling to you as you move through life yourself.

I read Claire Fuller's Our Endless Numbered Days back in 2015 and adored it, yet I haven't read any of her novels since then until Hunger and Thirst. This is clearly something I need to rectify because I do really enjoy her writing. Claire Fuller is able to touch on those deeply painful, vulnerable parts of girl- and womanhood, the craving for love and connection, the almost literal hunger and thirst that accompanies persistent self-denial. Her language is also beautiful and she has a real control of her craft. Hunger and Thirst could easily slip into cliches or seem overly dramatic, which is always a danger with Gothic literature, but it never does. Fuller has the reader consistently hovering on the knife's edge between belief and disbelief, between wanting to externalise the trauma and the past in the forms of a ghost and accepting that the past is never gone and always a part of us. What I really liked about this novel is the role that Fuller gives art in understanding one's self. Sue is obsessed with film making, with capturing images and ideas, with visualising the building dread. Ursula also turns to art to express things she cannot fully verbalise, constantly returning to similar themes and motifs as she tries to understand herself. That is, in the end, what I think art is for; giving shape to things we cannot fully name, directly look at, or fully accept. Hunger and Thirst does this well and I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

I give this novel...

5 Universes!

Hunger and Thirst is a stunning Gothic novel about trauma and womanhood, the role of art, and facing your monsters. If you're into any of this, then it is a must-read. If you're hesitant about it, still give this book a go.