Archive for Sheila Merritt
Blood Spring – Book Review
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Blood Spring
Erik Williams
Bad Moon Books
Trade Paper, 114 pages, $18.95
Review by Sheila M. Merritt
Good intentions; it is said that the road to hell is paved with them. In Blood Spring, by Erik Williams, an act of human kindness leads to inhumane horrors. This very compact and linear narrative savages the sanctity of civilized behavior. The complacency of cultural comfort is raped by rural brutality. This is territory covered in Deliverance, and in the films of director Sam Peckinpah. To his credit, author Williams takes the well trod path and infuses it with a visceral vitality.
The book’s de rigueur mild mannered protagonist, Henry Jacobs, is acquiescent and quietly seething. His wife Claire has nursed back to health a deer she found injured from an accident. During the six months of its healing, Henry has suffered internally. He allows the garage to be appropriated as a hospital/nursery for the recovering animal; he shovels its excrement. What taxes his emotional endurance to the max, though, is Claire’s affection for the beast. Although comprehending her sublimation of maternal instincts (she is incapable of having children) Henry is jealous. And he recognizes it. This only gives his spouse more leverage for manipulation. When the time comes to return the creature to the wild, Claire makes the call about the site’s location: It must be deep into the forest; away from roads and people. The area that suits her purpose in their region of Florida is the stuff of modern myth. Local legends abound, but a choice is made.
The freed animal scampers off, in its element. The couple, however, possesses the survival skills of metaphorical babes in the woods. They are disoriented, lacking sustainable food and water, and unable to locate their vehicle. Claire is seemingly unconcerned, but does off-handedly blame Henry for his inability to change the situation. Henry is angry: Angry at being lost; angry at the damn deer; and angry at his wife for causing the problem. These latent hostilities get vented when he is confronted with primitive atrocities.
Author Williams does an excellent job conveying the undercurrents and tensions in the marriage. The frustrations of the union are dealt with precision and a dash of humor. He also handles the predictable shift of character with a flourish. The violent landscape, of course, alters Henry. His metamorphosis from milquetoast accountant into blood-thirsty barbarian is finely depicted. No bad deed goes unpunished.
Blood Spring is a rapid read. The suspense is streamlined and flows easily; a taut tale. Erik Williams delivers a merciless meditation on a benevolent act that mutates to its monstrously malevolent closure.
Regret – Book Review
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Regret
Gabrielle Faust
Dark Regions Press
Trade Paper, 139 pages, $16.95
Review by Sheila M. Merritt
To everything: Burn! Burn! Burn! There is a season: Burn! Burn! Burn! And a time to every purpose, not in heaven. From Ecclesiastes to Pete Seeger’s music, popularized by the Byrds, the words here are adjusted to conform to Gabrielle Faust’s novella, Regret. In the tale, a wicked twisting and tweaking of Biblical conventions takes place. Told from the point of view of the doomed and demonic, “time” and “purpose” are rationalizations for unholy actions. Souls are for taking; religious rules are for breaking, as Faust addresses Mephistophelean machinations. The author has a gift for words that evoke vibrant images. She gives her plot drive and substance.
Her book’s protagonist, Marcus, is emotionally tormented. He becomes increasingly inwardly oriented; denying, and then withdrawing from, acceptable social interaction. His girlfriend Brenda sees the symptoms of mental breakdown, and urges him to seek help. The Demon of Regret, however, has already invaded Marcus’ sad life; lulling him into suicidal mode. The attempt renders Marcus comatose from the self inflicted gunshot wound; which allows for some significant chat with the evil entitiy. All of this leads to a usurping of the devilish being’s role as a harvester for the unholy. Marcus’ earthly psychosis is deftly dissected: “There was something about the physical world that drained him like a psychic vampire; distantly he remembered being plagued by this throughout his mortal life, a residual impression of depression drifting across his mind like a wisp of distant campfire smoke. His awareness of the weakness was acute and he erected steel walls around his identity to keep the sensation at bay, but he could still hear it sniffing and scratching on the other side searching for that one tiny fissure to break through.”
His new role as a demon has peculiar perks, but also unveils a cycle of never-ending dissatisfaction and confrontations with rivals in a hellish hierarchy. Mind games are played to wear down and seduce the unwary damned: “Staring into her eyes he prodded the periphery of the armor around her soul searching for the weak spots like a crow pecking at an injured turtle.” Hell is indeed hell for all concerned.
The beauty of the narrative is Faust’s prose. Her word choice is intense and precise; it snaps the storyline into an emotive, organic whole. Marcus is a loser in life, and lost in the afterlife. Immersed in regret, he is the perfect vessel to embody it. He still hungers to suckle at Brenda’s potential guilt for his suicide: “A Mona Lisa of destruction, her pain was the work of a true master.”
As adroit as she is at distilling the interworkings of the mind, the author also does a superior job of conveying atmosphere: “The autumn wind was crisp with the clean scent of ice and subtle perfume of decaying cottonwood leaves. It ebbed and flowed through the branches of the trees, humming a gentle lullaby to the spirits nestled in the rough-hewn cradle crooks that spoke of slumber and dreams and the promise of an eventual spring. The wind carried a residual loneliness upon its currents, poignant at times as a harsh reprimand, soft and consoling at times like a mother’s sympathetic caress.”
Regret reminds that we all have a few. They subconsciously nag and randomly surface to toy with our lives. Gabrielle Faust is sagacious about such demons of the soul. The reader will not regret experiencing this tale.
Spores From Sharnoth and Other Madnesses – Book Review
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Spores from Sharnoth and Other Madnesses
Leigh Blackmore
P’rea Press
Trade Paper, 56 pages, $15.00 AU
Review by Sheila M. Merritt
There’s a different holiday perspective in the land down under. It’s the yin to our yang; very antipodean, indeed. In the poem “Terror Australis,” a play on the phrase Terra Australis, Leigh Blackmore reminds:
The Southern Land–where snow but rarely falls–
In Yuletide brings the threat of searing fire;
Where sun and heat with sweat and dust conspire–
No holly and no ivy deck the halls.
Given this geographical discrepancy; a widdershins cerebral challenge, it would appear that never the twain shall meet between the two cultures. Yet, in his evocative embracing of American horror authors H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, poet Blackmore shows that writers’ influences know no boundaries. Lands may separate, but literature unites. Spores from Sharnoth and Other Madnesses, is a collection of poems that illustrate reverence for the works of two terror-meisters. The appreciation of their gifts is uniquely expressed in the eloquent words, and choice phrasing of Leigh Blackmore.
His homage to Lovecraft’s story “Pickman’s Model,” becomes plural in the poem “Pickman’s Models.” Here is its second stanza:
Madness and talent, both in him are rife;
His brush a nightmare-spawning wand, Hell’s fires
In pigment he sets down–yet never tires;
For Pickman paints his dreadful works from life…
Beneath the streets of Boston, loathsome beasts
Live over-nourished on appalling feasts!
The tortured artist, a motif that reflects the work and life of Edgar Allan Poe, inspired Lovecraft’s short story. Blackmore seizes on the febrile force inherent in the tale, and distills it with poetic preciseness and passion.
Clark Ashton Smith is honored in the thrum and cadence of “Memoria: A Fragment From the Book of Wyvern.” In part III, the opening passage encapsulates the overall atmosphere of the piece:
Now I am there once more at fall of night,
And as I gaze upon remembered things–
The blasting-wand and brazier, deviced
With lions winged and serpents venom-fanged–
Music by Winter’s frosty wind-glance blown
Beats airy fists on mirror panes nearby
And I peer out to see the sunless globes
Of thick, dark night give way to clear, cold skies.
This narrative poem elicits mental images comparable to those in Smith’s poetry. The writing has a fever dream quality in its drug infused theme and structure; a pervasive hypnotic, hallucinatory tone. Tinged with an unholy sensuality, the length and languid pacing enhance the mood.
Smith’s influence is also evident in “Succubus,” a visually vivid poem which contains this most memorable first stanza:
Dead moons slumber in your eyes;
Pale and leprous is your face;
Parchment-like your withered thighs
That grip me in their dry embrace.
The startling imagery gets increasingly graphically gripping in the third and final stanza, escalating to a crescendo that is vastly disturbing and powerful.
Spores from Sharnoth and Other Madnesses displays Blackmore’s deft way with words to fine advantage. Yet, there is more than mere verbal dexterity astir here. Within the shadows and shadings of form and content, there is a heart; a depth of feeling. H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith knew that engaging the cerebral is rewarding, but enthralling the emotions of the reader is the goal. Leigh Blackmore follows their lead.
Randalls Round – Book Review
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Randalls Round
Eleanor Scott
Oleander Press
Trade Paper, 175 pages, £8.95
Review by Sheila M. Merritt
“And then quite silently the curtain at the window waved in some mysterious breath of night air – lifted for a second, and fell as silently.” Welcome to the words and cadences of Eleanor Scott: An author whose horror writings temporally overlapped with those of the revered M.R. James. There is an ebb and flow in the ghost stories of the early 20th century. As Eleanor lucidly expressed: There is suspenseful suspending of fear; a literary lingering that occurs just prior to a release of built up tension. Randalls Round is a compilation of nine tales derived from Scott’s dreams/nightmares. Her extrapolation of the nocturnal narratives is both of its time, and timeless. Oleander Press has reprinted the collection, which hasn’t been published in Britain for over eighty years. The stories are aimed at a certain class; educated and erudite. What is ultimately fascinating though, is the pervasive chill factor. Scott crosses social boundaries in her ability to send a frisson of terror up the spine.
Consider the description of a tormented and frightened young woman in “The Old Lady:” “Her face was ashen, her lips colourless, her eyes vacant as with sheer naked panic. Her tongue passed incessantly over her white lips. She reminded me of a hypnotised rabbit.” Distilled in just a few lines is a vivid depiction of fright and despair. The character is perfectly delineated, and achingly accessible.
The author is also shrewd in pointing out discrepancies in appearances and ensuing expectations. In “At Simmel Acres Farm,” there is a disunion of a farm and a parcel of land on its grounds: “The farm was so well-ordered and the fields so clean that it seemed odd that a piece of ground so near the dwelling-house should be neglected.”
Possession and spirits abound, and connections between environs and individuals are entwined. Most often, a place with a history will absorb an unsuspecting inhabitant into its malice. Yet, something as seemingly innocuous as a tree can be the vehicle which draws an individual into deep disturbance. Like the one employed to great effect in the titular tale “The Ash-Tree,” by M.R. James, an arbor horribilis is depicted in Scott’s “The Tree.” An evil becomes rooted in an artist’s psyche, and grimly grows. The creative gets superseded by an overpowering image; dominating and dictating the emphasis of paintings. Atmospheric and intense, the narrative establishes an environment that is at once expansive and claustrophobic: “But the thunder hung in the air, or only growled suddenly far off; and the air lay on your lungs like a poultice, hot and clammy.”
Randalls Round was published first in 1929, and then again in 1996 with an edition from Canadian Ash-Tree Press, which was limited to 500 copies. Now, Oleander Press presents the spooky visions for modern masses. Emblematic of her time, and with an implicit intellectual exclusiveness, Eleanor Scott’s haunting tales are worth the wait.
Blood and Sunlight – Book Review
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Blood and Sunlight: A Maryland Vampire Story
Jamie Wasserman
Penumbra Publishing
Paperback, 264 pages, $11.99
Review by Sheila M. Merritt
It is easy to be struck by the title Blood and Sunlight: A Maryland Vampire Story. There is no allure of Bram Stoker’s Transylvania or London; not a hint of the New Orleans or Paris of Anne Rice. In Jamie Wasserman’s book, the narrative takes place in Ellicott City, Maryland. A disenchanted young woman born in the town connects with a local vampire who becomes accustomed to the area. The female protagonist is looking for love in all the wrong places, and sees the seedy side up close and personal. Does she finally find a soul mate on home turf? Wasserman explores the possibilities with sly sensitivity interspersed with jolts of jocularity. He creates a nicely etched tale about expectations and assumptions confounded.
At age 23, Melanie is a jaded college drop out. Her romantic entanglements are pragmatically superficial: “She had carefully orchestrated a steady succession of men with no breaks in between. She had been chain-smoking her way through relationships.” For Melanie, disappointments are expected; getting hurt inevitable. Drugs and sex soothe the sorrow, but the effect is temporary. When a wannabe vampire role-playing boyfriend gets killed by a genuine blood sucker, the dynamics of her life change. She meets and beds a slayer of the undead, which results in a much kinkier exchange than she would have wished. Into the mix comes a heroic affectionate vampire, who defies the stereotypes and woos with stately old world charm. Not to mention the enticing retribution aspects of eternal existence: “Giving her fangs and immortality was like giving a shark an Uzi and malice.”
Author Wasserman presents an astute glimpse into the dichotomy of youthful female sexuality. There is power, but insecurity tempers it. Vulnerability can leave scars, and trying to separate physical pleasure from emotional warmth is complicated. Melanie has learned from the past to be wary; and cannot forgive and forget: “She carried grudges around with her like other people kept pictures of their kids in their wallet.”
Blood and Sunlight is a tale of responding to love, when all the indications say: BEWARE. The home town ennui can shift, and bring unexpected changes. In Jamie Wasserman’s first novel, there is triumph in opening up to what is extraordinary. Even when it occurs in the vicinity of one’s own backyard.
Shirley Jackson: Novels and Stories – Book Review
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Shirley Jackson: Novels and Stories
Edited by Joyce Carol Oates
Library of America
Hardcover, 832 pages, $35.00
Review by Sheila M. Merritt
“Hysterically polite,” is a phrase employed by Shirley Jackson in the novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle. It can be well applied to the bulk of her oeuvre: Characters on the edge of sanity, grappling with, or adapting to, a hostile environment. Conforming to community standards requires acquiescence – or else results in ostracization, at best. There is a giggle in the hysteria, a disquieting comfort in familiar objects and rituals. And viciousness is insidiously pervasive.
In Shirley Jackson: Novels and Short Stories, venerable editor Joyce Carol Oates compiles 26 tales and two novels of The Mistress of Madness and the Macabre. The volume also contains a chronology, notes on the text, and Jackson’s own reflections on her most notorious short story. The horrors presented in the book pertain to identity, both lost and found. Community and kinship come with desperate baggage. Oates’ intelligent editing gives profound insight into the universe of the great genre writer.
Allegory is synonymous with Shirley Jackson. Her famous and controversial story, “The Lottery,” certainly lends itself to allegorical interpretation. In the fiction assembled by Oates, parables and analogies abound. There is a correlation in the tale “The Renegade” between the chicken killing dog and its owner; obeisance to standards must be met, and a casual country cruelty demands to be addressed. Rules get defined, in no uncertain terms. In “The Dummy,” the distinction between what is human and what is not, is faint: “It was a grotesque wooden copy of the man – where he was blond, the dummy was extravagantly yellow-haired, with sleek wooden curls and sideburns; where the man was small and ugly, the dummy was smaller and uglier, the same mouth, the same staring eyes, the horrible parody of evening clothes, complete to tiny black shoes.”
Conformity and non-conformity are confronted by Jackson, even in edifices. In perhaps the most well known structure in horror literature, Hill House, there is a rebellion against the norm. The Haunting of Hill House describes the dwelling thus: “It was a house without kindness, never meant to be lived in, not a fit place for people or for love or for hope. Exorcism cannot alter the countenance of a house; Hill House would stay as it was until it was destroyed.”
Not blending in, and feelings of alienation are rampant themes in the writings. Joyce Carol Oates, herself an esteemed writer of the weird, presents biographical background which illuminates Jackson’s attraction to such motifs. After the publication of “The Lottery,” the author received hate mail and heated queries about the story’s meaning. She felt herself such an outsider that she stated: “Millions of people, and my mother, had taken a pronounced dislike to me.” It was an affirmation of her status of strangeness and estrangement.
Shirley Jackson was brilliant, and observant. She said, “One of the most terrifying aspects of publishing stories and books is the realization that they are going to be read, and read by strangers.” That is a fine distillation, indeed. In Shirley Jackson: Novels and Stories, there is a cornucopia of excellence that is overwhelming. Given the intensity, and some similarity in theme, this is a tome that is best appreciated in measured form. The superb works should be savored slowly; paced with intervals.
