Ugly Stories For Beautiful People
James Burr
Corsega Press,
Paperback $25.50 280pp
Review by David Simms
This reviewer has read countless collections of fiction, in many genres, many eras. That being said, Ugly Stories has got to be one of the oddest. That could be a negative, yet in this case, Burr’s strong imagination and plaintive, yet very effective prose manages to pull it off. If someone else attempted a story about a man and woman so infatuated with each that they literally became one, with language anything other than what this one employs, it would likely fall flat. Burr tells his stories in an everyman manner which comes off like he’s right there with you telling what he noticed during a typical week.
Two of the entries, “It” and “Blue” garnered honorable mentions in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, which warmed this heart since the reviewer placed a story in the same anthology. Odd, unique, very cool, and extremely readable, this collection is recommended for anyone looking for something different – or for one of us who isn’t one of the beautiful people!
