Karim Ghahwagi

Books

Notes starting in March 2012

13.07.2011

13.07.2011

The Horror Anthology of Horror Anthologies

Edited by DF Lewis

Cover image by Tony Lovell

Megazanthus Press 2011

324 pages.

http://horroranthology.wordpress.com/

It’s Only Words by Colleen Anderson.

‘The constant companionship, the incessant susurrus of voices filled his head. They could speak, they told their stories, but he never had been able to shout above the crowd.’

Colleen Anderson’s opening story of shifting malleable identities, temporary unsatisfied catharsis, exorcism and infection (of the body and of actual texts) opens this DF Lewis edited anthology of horror stories. Kudos must go to Tony Lovell’s excellent cover artwork and photography which already seems to perfectly complement Colleen Anderson’s opening tale. Lloyd, the tale’s protagonist we discover, is plagued by some form of personality disorder or schizophrenia. He might also be haunted by the stories he has been reading since he was a boy. It is a strength of the story that this disparity remains unclear-his thoughts and mind however are certainly subject to a cacophony of voices. A seemingly banal incident involving the protagonist’s car being unjustly towed away has harrowing consequences. Revealing more would spoil this excellent tale. Colleen Anderson incorporates elements of body horror and intertextuality in an effective and original way.

Tree Ring Anthology by Daniel Ausema

‘Read it here in the rings, our anthology of the valley of horrors.’

Daniel Ausema uses the cross-section of a tree to show us a map of its history, drawing us far back in time beginning at the tree’s heartwood pith and tracing an unsettling line all the way to the present day at the very outer edge of the cambium, and in a final twist- beyond. The story is densely packed with rich, suggestive imagery. The original variation on the theme is refreshing, and the tale’s fantastical elements are also aptly employed to highlight environmental concerns.

The Useless by Dominy Clements

‘They seem able to tell me stories in which I know I must be the central character, the past chapters of my life recounted with unnerving clearness…’

As in the opening tale, Dominy Clements explores the idea of a text spreading or infecting those that come into contact with it, willingly or otherwise. Daniel Ausema’s story similarly employs the image of the severed tree to paint a larger canvas, a synecdoche of the condition of the surrounding landscape. This tale incorporates both of these elements whilst raising questions as to the reliability of the narrator’s perceptions. Dominy Clements’s main character, the wife of a university lecturer, finds herself stranded alone in the desert after she and her husband’s car has run out of gas. In a memorable early scene where she awaits her husband’s return on foot from a nearby gas station, her eyes fall upon a strange figure lying on the side of the road. ‘For some reason, my brain has been accepting that everything is as normal as the situation allows, and I fall back into a more relaxed state on seeing the return of my better half.’ The better half however turns out not to be her husband but a stranger, a man who introduces himself as Bob. Her husband he informs her, is unwell, and waiting for her in the nearby town. Revealing more of the story would spoil any surprises. The tale has a nice twist, and several memorable weird scenes. It also provides an additional interesting variation on the relationship between the body and text, and those perceptions that bind them.

14.07.2011

Tears of the Mutant Jesters by Rhys Hughes

‘The anthology sobbed and shivered. Perhaps it thinks I’m torturing it, mused Thornton. He rapidly flipped the pages…After the final tale there was an appendix in which the editor had the opportunity to discuss surrealistic horror stories in general, to justify that somewhat sidelined subgenre.’

Books, in Rhys Hughes’s absurdist horror story, can be fastidious things. They can make noises in the middle of the night, they can howl and cry out in pain, they can wail and wince, they can groan and eject weird vomit, they can sob and shiver and even shift position and mess up even the most careful bibliophile’s regimented collection of books. The book in question, an anthology of one hundred surreal and fantastical horror stories, can even suffer from appendicitis! (Nearby volumes have other ailments: Athlete’s footnotes, allergic reactions to bookmarks, and my favorite, particularly relevant to anthologies: the loss of consciousness.) Such is the absurdist mode in this comic and disturbing tale, rich with anthropomorphic literary devices. The story seems to want to perhaps challenge the idea that there is no place for comedy, surrealism or satire in the weird tale of terror. It is very much welcomed here.

16.07.2011

The Apoplexy of Beelzebub by Colin Insole.

‘Clare had overheard the excited whispers and gossip of her colleagues that he was preparing a special anthology to mark the anniversary of the cathedral’s foundation.’

Clare, a research assistant to an unnamed Curator (and the Curator is capitalized throughout the tale as this character works on several intertwined layers), delves into the archives of her city and slowly, through a series of harrowing vignettes, historical documents, films, books, exposes the city’s malice, and in doing so, Clare discovers the predicament of her own fate and personal history. Colin Insole masterfully interweaves elements of hagiography, developmental child psychology, and fin-de-siècle paranoia, with a carefully chosen tableau of arresting images. ‘We nail our lies to the ghosts of suspicion.’ This is a magnificent tale, and one of the best I have read this year.

Paper Cuts by Nick Jackson

‘All writers share a common vein, don’t you agree? Here you are in print in company with your literary heroes: Lovecraft, Stoker and M.R. James.’

Mr. Volpius, a writer of horror stories, is bitten one morning by a serpent coiled around the thorny stem of a rose bush in his front garden. Panicked, he quickly instructs his wife Eva to call upon a doctor, who soon turns out to be of dubious intent. The story takes off from here and revealing more would spoil this entertaining tale. As in Rhys Hughes’s previous story, some absurdist and comic elements are incorporated into the narrative to great effect. The story explores ideas concerning poetic inspiration, the solitary nature perhaps of the writer’s life and his imagination- and particularly, the role of his muse (and her infidelities, also to great and grotesque effect.) The tale moves beyond its boundaries in its final act, contrasting nicely with the well handled claustrophobic parameters in the first half of the story.

Horror Stories for Boys by Rachel Kendall

‘Yes, his dad was a brute, a savage when he’d been drinking, a lout, a bastard and many other names his mother would scream whenever he hit her. But what seems to really be affecting him is the fact that his dad is in hospital and he hasn’t spoken to him in, what, 20 years or so?’

Despite a series of powerful and caustic flashbacks spurred by the discovery of an anthology in his childhood home, Gary, the story’s anguished, melancholic protagonist, reluctantly decides to make the two hundred mile drive to visit his dying father in hospital. Perhaps due to the main character’s first name, I was reminded in moments of the writing of Gary McMahon, particularly in its unflinching honest portrayals of often grim existences. Rachel Kendall’s writing voice is her own however, and the power in the story lies in the hard and bitter decisions that Gary has to make, but you have to read the tale to find out exactly what those choices are.

Common Myths and Misconceptions Regarding Rita Kendall by AJ Kirby

‘…she saw only the returning ugly duckling which was herself. Ugly as a child, ugly in old age, who’d have believed the blossoming which had taken place, that struck-match decade of wonder when she’d had the world at her feet?’

Rita Kendall, scream queen of schlock horror films of times past, is perhaps past her prime herself, and she now spends her halcyon days languishing in front of a swimming pool with strong drink at her side. Expecting to recount juicy details of her days in the film business, and eager for an extended modicum of fame, she accepts an offer to have an in-depth piece written about her by a visiting writer in residence. Martin Smart (Smartin), the ‘writer in residence’, has been commissioned to write an in-depth piece on her by a mysterious patron, a horror aficionado, who wishes to remain anonymous and assemble a collection to be titled: The Horror of Horros Anthology- the HOHA. In the space of the story AJ Kirby draws what feels like an effective in-depth portrait of his heroine, using flashbacks, psychological fugues, fragmentary well chosen observations- all infused with rich film imagery that increasingly draws into question Rita Kendall’s fragile mental condition.

Midnight Flight by Joel Lane

‘For years he’d dreamt of flying through the night on fragile wings.’

Paul Cooksey, a man in his twilight years, is feeling lost in the noise of the modern world, estranged by the fast moving flurry of chattering cell phones and the constant hubbub of electronic devices. One twilight evening, whilst riding the bus near the Hockney Flyover, he suddenly recalls reading a collection of stories about ‘winged nocturnal creatures’ in his youth in 1956. These stories, his ailing memory recalls, had a profound effect on the imagination of his twelve year old self, and he decides therefore to track down first the book, then its editor Thom Parr in the hope of relieving his intense feelings of loss and loneliness. You have to read this atmospheric and painful story to find out what happens to Paul and his quest. The tale is filled with a beautiful and melancholy palette of dark blues, blacks and purples, and the whispery sound of wings in the night.

17.07.2011

The Fifth Corner By E.Michael Lewis

‘Through the seat he felt a presence, a powerful and evil presence.‘

Vered Kyle, an associate professor of literature, is assembling an anthology of ghost stories for his debuting university press imprint, and he wants Roman Maddox Booth, an university alumnus and author of golden age pulpy ghost stories and revenge plots to include an unpublished tale in his anthology. This he hopes will draw some notoriety and attention to his book. Private and ascetic in life style, old and wheelchair bound, Booth now lives in an old manor house, Heatherby Estate, outside a town called Blackchurch. The ‘Fifth Corner’ it turns out, is a tale which Booth had penned upon hearing of H.P. Lovecraft’s death, a tale so terrifying that it has been sealed in an envelope and sown into the seat of one of booth’s limousines, a 1933 Rolls Royce Phantom II, in nearby Marymont: ‘a three story pseudo-gothic brick and marble edifice’ filled with other notorious cars. The only copy of the tale in existence it turns out, is to be found inside the car. Drawing on occult Lovecraftian themes, infamous and legendary Necronomicon texts, and images which reminds me of King’s Christine, and more perhaps, From A Buick 8, E. Michael Lewis has penned a straight to the gut horror story, which is very welcomed in the collection here. Scenes are genuinely well handled and gripping. Sometimes the straight, no nonsense horror story delivers what it promises, it does what it says on the box, or in this case, in the car, and this story does it well.

The Follower by Tony Lovell

‘It struck her suddenly that the nugget of the idea could be harmful, that a life could be ruined by dwelling on it, set off-kilter, a spirit held to it by the solitary speck of its weight.’

In The Follower, Tony Lovell invites us to follow the life of his protagonist Dorothy through well chosen moments stretching from her early childhood to a time when she is a grownup and a parent to her son Kevin. Books and readings of particular books, at certain points in time have different consequences, consequences that Dorothy herself comes to terms with- or fails to come to terms with- on various levels. The sections depicting the young Dorothy were effectively done, and the echoes and repercussions of those experiences later in her life are well handled as well, the scenes between Dorothy and Kevin particularly effective towards the end of the tale.

Residua by David Mathew

‘…he knew that his greatest chance of happiness- of avoiding the reality of this pit, however temporarily- lay in fiction that was close to reality, but with a ghoulish twist thrown in for the ride.’

Steve Bilty is in prison, sentenced to 18 years of hard time for a crime he may or may not have committed. A prison guard, Orwenson, seems to know something about it. When Bilty comes across an Alfred Hitchcock presented anthology called Ghostly Gallery in the prison library, strange things begin to happen behind the prison walls. The enjoyment in this involving story revolves around the scenes between Bilty and the prison guard Orwenson. The dialogue between these two characters just jumps off the page. Slowly we come to realize what is haunting Bilty, and you have to read this entertaining story to find out what his crime may or may not have been, and if he is guilty or innocent. (And those Hitch anthos surely have seeped into the impressionable minds of many a young reader.)

The American Club by Christopher Morris

‘He was eager for more contact, but he saw now it was possible that he would never connect with his father again, at least not in any meaningful way.’

When Daniel Polzer receives a phone call informing him that his father is dying in a hospital in Ockham, Wisconsin, he is forced to abandon his school work during finals week and rush to his bedside. His father Edgar Polzer is the victim of an anonymous hit and run accident. As Daniel sits vigil at his bedside with his sister Sarah who has also returned home, we discover that Edgar has been displaying increasingly strange and paranoid behavior, particularly just prior to his accident. He fears the family home is haunted, he believes that he is being watched and followed. Without giving any more away, the story centers around a Faustian collection of tales, one of which has been penned by Daniel’s father. You have to read this gripping tale to find out the significance of the title. The setting in Wisconsin, and certain elements of the story reminded me at times of something we might encounter in a tale penned by Peter Straub, but Christopher Morris’s voice is his own, and the title and its significance is incorporated into the tale in an interesting way. The story made me want to turn the pages to discover what was going to happen next.

18.07.2011

The Rediscovery of Death by Mike O’Driscoll

‘…soon his mind was once again replaying scenes from the anthology, with storylines from one tale suddenly straying into another.’

Nicholas Cleaver, the owner of an ailing independent publishing business in Roath, Cardiff, has enjoyed some critical and financial success in the past. Anxious to repeat some of his early successes, he agrees to meet up with a sickly looking man called Simon Strickle who claims ‘to have the rights to over thirty unpublished tales of supernatural fiction by some of the field’s most acclaimed writers’. The manuscript which shares the story’s title, contains a true treasure trove of hitherto undiscovered works by Aickman, Leiber, Bloch, Clark Ashton Smith, Shirley Jackson, Lovecraft, Angela Carter- the list is extensive, and Cleaver is understandably more than a little skeptical about its authenticity- until he sees the manuscript with his own eyes. There is a catch of course, and you have to read the tale to find out how this anthologist’s dream turns into nightmare. Authors and editors presently in the field (and in this anthology) may find themselves interwoven into the fabric of this chilling story.

Flowers of the Sea by Reggie Oliver

Whilst driving along a tree lined country lane one chilly Sunday morning in January to see a mutual friend’s painting exhibition in Suffolk, the narrator and his wife Helen just barely avoid having an accident. Shocked but otherwise physically unhurt, the incident however marks the beginning of a tragic and devastating series of events which cast a long shadow over the next half decade in the story. A curio shop containing a Victorian leather bound volume featuring a collection of pressed flowers brings additional rich and terrifying layers to this major story. Reggie Oliver juxtaposes scenes of quiet tenderness between husband and wife, with a deep sense of loss and frustration, helplessness and existential dread- depicted literally or in the mind of the narrator through terrifying glimpses of a vast, churning abyss of wilted flowers and nightmarish forms. It is masterfully done, and deeply felt, and this the second story in this anthology to make one of my year’s best.

‘Nearly all tragedies in real life are played out in slow motion. It is only in retrospect that we can see where they have begun and where they end, but that may well be an illusion. We call one event tragic, another comic to make some sense of them, to create a beloved pattern. Patterns, however grim, console us; the one truly hateful thing is chaos.’

19.07.2011

The Pearl and the Boil by Rosanne Rabinowitz

‘Each story could be whispering in a voice coming from the hungry flower, or a melody sung by the dark haired girl as she made her way up the road.’

Flying back from Oxford to New Jersey, Cora joins her sister Julie in helping their parents relocate to a new home. When Cora stumbles upon an undiscovered, unopened letter addressed to her childhood self, she is flooded with memories and sensations concerning a collection of stories called The Scarlet Thread and the Amber Road. The letter it turns out, is a response to a note which Cora has left in the very book and returned to the library – almost like a message in a bottle. The message could be understood as Cora’s childhood self longing to share her experience of the stories with a kindred spirit. The story shifts from the first to the third person, scenes from her adult self are juxtaposed with moments from her childhood, the scenes overlapping with fragments vividly described from the collection of stories: A girl enters a house that is filled with sky, another girl is trapped in a bottle, a flower mysteriously starts to play music only to devour the little girl who has nurtured it to bloom, statues come to life during a moment of passion, cities exist where colors are banned, a train is filled with distorted bodies. There is a rich pattern of images and colors and sensations in this story.

‘It might be ghosts of children from the mills. But the people Sybille sees and hears might not be ghosts, but be living in a layer of the past that overlaps with the present.’

The Writer by Clayton Stealback

‘There’s a doppelganger for every one of us. And tonight I found mine.’

For several weeks Steven has been wrestling with a short story he wants to submit to a horror anthology called Dark Heights. He just can’t seem to finish his story, he constantly redrafts, reedits, rewrites, changing paragraphs around, polishing sentences- the story is going nowhere and it is driving him crazy. His wife Alice is getting fed up with the routine. Every night when Steven crawls up into his attic to hack away at his story, she sits alone on the sofa downstairs, nodding off to the news of financial collapse on TV. Strange things begin to happen. They must not be revealed here, though they involve elements of Steven’s narrative bleeding into the reality of the story. There are some great one liners of internal rationalizing here, and I was smiling to myself all the way through this story. It was genuinely scary as well. I was reminded somehow of Ash from the Evil Dead films, suddenly confronting surreal and horrific forces. But is it real? Are the manifestations a result of Steven’s imagination? You have to read the story to find out.

20.07.2011

Horror Planet by S.D. Tullis

It is almost impossible to pick and choose what should be lifted from the text and quoted as I would have to retype the entire story here. I suggest you pick up a copy of this anthology and read everything in it including this story and then you will see what I mean. But I will quote one observation here: ‘But he knew, or at least guessed- which for him was as good as knowing- that it was how the mechanics of dream operated: constructing through an unfathomable process a piecemeal assemblage of dream-motifs, a willy-nilly patchwork culled from first- and second hand experience, overactive imagination, and even smuggling them in from already dreamed landscapes of the unreal.’ This is a guy meets girl story. Robert falls in love with Charlotte. I am still not giving too much away to say that we end up in space, hurtling towards the sun. There is a role to play for a horror anthology. I’m just going to quote one more paragraph here. No I’d better not. I want to though. I must resist. Read the story.

You Walk the Pages by Mark Valentine

‘So I know what the Colossus knows and what the light of the Pharos shows and these people who look at me you see they do not know what I know.’

The title of this excellent story refers to an internet service which allows you to replace the name of a principal character from a famous book with your own, or that of a friend or family member- or perhaps, of someone you might consider to be your enemy. This captures the imagination of Mark Valentine’s colorful, obsessive and fastidious writer-narrator. ‘One day I sat in my room wondering what to think about, what should engage a man who is a thinker and a dreamer, who is able to have visions like I am.’ I won’t say more but that the narrator incorporates ideas concerning the magical properties of the Seven Wonders of the World into his narrative to great and chilling effect.

22.07.2011

All His Worldly Goods by D.P. Watt

‘It was all inside him, a lost cargo of memories, slowly rusting into oblivion.’

After taking care of his mother Susan who has passed away after battling a prolonged illness a few month’s prior to the beginning of the story, Alan now spends his days working in a charity bookshop. He lives just a few miles away in his mother’s empty house on the top of a nearby hill. Liz, the store’s proprietor, seems to be fixed on modernizing her shop and she has therefore hired a new helping hand, David, a university student, to bring things up to date. One day a man called Eli Webb comes into the store with the intention of donating a box of books to the store. One volume in particular, a collection of horror stories which is presented equally as an occult work and a grimoire called ‘The Supernatural Omnibus’, catches Alan’s attention. D.P. Watt manages to infuse a sense of melancholy and nostalgia with a skillfully controlled mounting sense of dread, and finally, a hard earned sense of revelation which also serves as a pitch perfect conclusion to this skillfully assembled anthology of horror stories. A sentence on the volume’s last page underneath another of Tony Lovell’s effective black and white images very appropriately reads: ‘A treebook beats an ebook, by dint of ditch or haha.’

END