The Night Listener and Others
Chet Williamson
PS Publishing
May 2015
Reviewed by David Goudsward

The Night Listener and Others is Chet Williamson’s second, long-awaited collection of short works — 21 stories, and a novella. It is a kaleidoscope of tales, ranging from ghost stories to Lovecraftian terrors with side trips into black humor and psychological horror. At the end of the book, Williamson adds notes on each story, noting such details as the publishing history and the inspiration. Reading those end notes, it is striking how much of himself Williamson has placed in each piece. This is not to say that any story is biographical (at least I hope not).

“Season Pass,” for instance, takes place in an amusement park that has expanded into something unrecognisably big and no longer familiar to local visitors, much like the evolution of Hersheypark of Williamson’s central Pennsylvania. “The Pebbles of Sai-No-Kawara” and “The Blanket Man” require not only a trip to Japan for inspiration but a traveler like Williamson, who ventures off the tourist trails to locales rarely seen by gaijin. One of the best stories in the collection, “The Smoke in Mooney’s Pub” again requires both a knack with subtle horror colored by the countless hours of performing in pubs to create that subdued familiarity that only comes from personal experience.

Toss in new twists on Dickens and Wodehouse, add the ghost of Vincent Price, a touch of the genealogical weird tale, and you will finish this book knowing you have read the work of a modern master of the genre. And this is not hyperbole.

How good is Chet Williamson at writing horror? Let’s put it this way — he is now riding the crest of praise for successfully accomplishing the impossible task of creating a sequel to Robert Bloch’s seminal novel, Psycho.  When your name is bandied about in the same sentence as Bloch, you have to be at the top of your game. The Night Listener and Others is further proof those accolades are more than deserved.