This is Horror Novellas.

I have much to thank This is Horror for – the website dedicated to all things – err… horror has introduced me to many new authors whose work I’ve then gone onto investigate further and enjoy. Amongst these authors I can count Stephen Graham Jones and Paul Tremblay, novels from whom are included in my favourite reads of this year. Last year, their chapbook The Visible Filth by Nathan Ballingrud had the “honour” of being my choice as the best single story of 2015.

Much joy then, at the news of the publication by them of two new novellas, A House at the Bottom of a Lake by Josh Malerman – whose Bird Box took an audacious concept and crafted it into an amazing novel and They Don’t Come Home Anymore by TE Grau, whose book The Nameless Dark was my pick for the best collection of 2015.

Exciting!

Two very different stories but sharing a common theme – the transition from childhood to adulthood, with both novellas having as their protagonists seventeen year-olds. Teenagers are, of course, a staple of horror; films have been using them as cannon-fodder for decades now, sacrificing them to Freddys, Jasons and their ilk in order to appeal to marketing demographics. Given the calibre of the authors though, it’s fair to expect a little more than gratuitously violent death scenes from these novellas and, unsurprisingly, that’s exactly what you get.

James and Amelia are the teenage protagonists of A House at the Bottom of a Lake and the story is that of their burgeoning love affair. One of their dates involves a boat-trip out onto a lake which leads to the discovery of a second, adjoining body of water and ultimately to a third lake. It is beneath this last stretch of water that they discover the house of the title as they glimpse its roof beneath the surface.

Strange that no one knows of its presence before now, strange too that the lake beneath which the house lies is a new discovery for James, already familiar with the area. So it is that the seeds are planted in the readers’ minds that this is all in the teenagers’ (or possibly only of them) imagination, that their discovery of first, true love is as significant a find as that of a house hidden in a lake. Is the house real or just a huge metaphor?

Whatever, their curiosity leads to further explorations of the building and, much like the change from air to water, so too the atmosphere of the book changes, a sinister mood replacing the joy and excitement of the beginning of the relationship.

The world inside the house is wonderfully created as is the slowly growing sense of dread – and that things are not quite as they should be… Why, for instance, have none of the house’s contents floated away? It’s when James attempts to find an answer to this that things turn very bad – leading to some extremely well crafted and effective creepiness.

Which kinds brings us back to the whole metaphor theory… Maybe love should be accepted for what it is, to question it will only destroy the whole thing..? Maybe it’s not about the house anyway – it’s perhaps significant that this is A house at the Bottom of A lake and not The House…

Deep thoughts – but then this is a story with depth in every sense of the word.

Read it as a metaphor or as a piece of magic realism, the choice really is yours. Either way you’ll find much to enjoy in this novella; some beautiful prose, spot-on characterisation and some genuinely creepy set-pieces enhanced marvellously by the claustrophobic surroundings of a submerged house.

Where A House at the Bottom of a Lake is all about depth, it could be argue that They Don’t Come Home Anymore is all about shallowness as it’s a trait displayed by many of the novella’s characters. Much of what I appreciated in Ted’s collection The Nameless Dark were the characters he created to populate his stories. The horrors he placed them in were all the more effective because they were believable and fully-formed and it’s no surprise to find that those character building skills are prominently on display here too.

The story follows lonely Hettie’s attempts to ingratiate herself with Avery, the most popular kid in the class. Following Avery’s hospitalisation with leukaemia - an event which is televised, such is the state and integrity of TV news these days - Hettie steps up in her quest, determined to save the other girl by whatever means necessary.

So begins her attempts to find a real vampire, for who better to cure a cancer of the blood and provide lifelong – everlasting – immunity?

Her quest takes her on a journey through the counter-culture of LA, leading her to an arcane bookstore with a cynical owner then onto a book signing by a cult authoress of vampire books. It’s here she encounters another group – not fans of the author, too cool for that - who claiming to be “real” vampires she's looking for.

There’s much joy to be had here in the author’s dissection of the personas his characters inhabit, peeling away the façade of style to reveal the cynical shallowness behind. The vampire chic presented by them is little more than a front for the truly horrible people they really are.

Nasty – but nothing as compared to actual, real vampires…

It’s a fine moment when the book changes tone from what has been almost a satirical look at the artificiality of horror and those who embrace it as a lifestyle in an effort to fit in or look cool and introduces some real horror of its own. It’s a bold move but one which pays off handsomely.

There are still twists to come though, a few more surprises for the reader before the book reaches its conclusion. There’s a lot going on in They Don’t Come Home Anymore, a rich vein of themes dare I say – artificiality, peer-pressure, loss of innocence, a sense of identity and many more besides - perhaps demanding a second read through to fully appreciate them all. It's a book which deserves real critical analysis - a much deeper and more detailed critique than this one but I have to say I loved every word of it.

To label both of these novellas as “coming of age” stories is perhaps too simplistic but the choice of having protagonists on the cusp of adulthood is definitely significant. Both are incredibly imaginative pieces of work and, in keeping with the subject matter of the Malerman book, definitely have a lot going on beneath the surface. Both are insights into human nature and, although they perhaps approach the subject from different directions, what they uncover is compelling.

I highly recommend both novellas, which you can buy here.

The Visible Filth

The Visible Filth is the latest chapbook produced by This is Horror and is written by Nathan Ballingrud. The author's collection North American Lake Monsters was one I was very impressed with so I had great expectations for this novella, expectations which I'm very pleased to report have have been met and, indeed, exceeded.
The story's protagonist is Will who works in Rosie's Bar in uptown New Orleans, a less than salubrious 24-hour establishment, a description of which begins the novella, complete with scuttling cockroaches, subtly setting the scene for what is to come.
The arrival of a group of students brings with it a violent brawl in which one of the bar's regulars, Eric, is wounded, glassed in the face with a broken bottle. Upon the group's departure, Will discovers that one of them has left behind a cell phone which he takes home with him. When he starts receiving text messages on the phone, the true horror begins...
The texts taunt Will but also guide him towards some images - and a video - that are stored on the phone. There are suggestions that the images, via the phone, exert some malign influence over Will, making him open the files but in reality, his decision to do so is probably down to the impulse within us all to look at that which we know will be horrible; the impulse that makes us slow down and crane our necks as we drive past a traffic accident; the impulse that makes us click on the play button of videos showing violent death, beheadings...
Of course, what's revealed in the files is utterly horrible and the author's prose here is perfect, brilliantly conveying the awfulness of what Will sees, transferring the sense of unease and disgust he feels straight into the reader's head. I was put very much in mind of the cursed video from Hideo Nakata's Ringu when reading these scenes, in particular the feeling of unease and dread that the "cursed" video in that film created in me.
There's plenty of disturbing imagery created in The Visible Filth - and the skill with which this is done is one of the story's strengths - much of it will linger in your memory long after reading. As well as this though, the novella presents another masterclass in the depiction of a relationship under strain - something that was also a feature of North American Lake Monsters. Will's relationship with girlfriend Carrie is going through a rough patch and the emotional nuances and dialogue between the two are pitched perfectly.
The Visible Filth is a grim read, one which will make demands of the reader. Bleak and nihilistic, it takes no prisoners and you'll be shaken and disturbed come the last page. Which is about as glowing a recommendation I can make for any horror story.

The Elvis Room.

The resurgence in the horror chapbook seems to be going from strength to strength with the well deserved success of the Spectral Press imprint as well as others, including This is Horror. One of the latter's publications, Conrad Williams' The Fox was indeed one of my picks of the best of 2013. I was very much looking forward therefore to their latest release, The Elvis Room by an author I must shamefully admit was new to me, Stephen Graham Jones.
My shame deepened after reading The Elvis Room, along with a growing sense of annoyance that I hadn't read any of Stephen's previous work as this is already a contender for my favourites of 2014 and is the best thing I've read so far this year.
It's a marvellous concept behind the story, a disgraced experimental psychologist investigating the urban mythology behind the so-called "Elvis Rooms" - a term made up by the psychologist to describe the room in every hotel that is kept empty just in case someone famous and/or important turns up unexpectedly needing a room. The myth is expanded to incorporate the death of a resident or residents when the "Elvis Room" is occupied.
It's a first person narrative from the perspective of the psychologist and so skilfully done as to create a brilliant character study. Driven would be a polite way to describe him, obsessive probably more accurate as his personal life and relationships wither and die, the price paid for his compulsive quest for knowledge. Obsessive? Yes. Unreliable? Maybe...
That obsessiveness is first displayed in the events that lead to his dismissal and disgrace (as well as that of a colleague) - a wonderfully atmospheric passage in which high-tech equipment provides evidence that ghosts do exist and that atmosphere intensifies as the story progresses and the (now maverick) investigations relocate to hotels, institutions that are quite possibly the spookiest places on the earth.
It's all high-concept stuff - something that often fails in horror writing as the original idea, intriguing and original as it may be, doesn't always resolve into a satisfactory conclusion. This is absolutely not the case here, the denoument and the explanation which is uncovered makes absolute sense, tying in perfectly with all that has preceded it and providing an eminently satisfying conclusion to the story.
Oh, and it's really scary too with some genuinely creepy moments that will make your hairs stand on end. (The reason for using that particular cliche will become apparent when you read the story...)
The Elvis Room is an outstanding piece of writing; intriguing, clever and downright scary and I thoroughly recommend it.

The Fox.

The Fox is the latest chapbook offering from the folks over at This is Horror and is written by the consistently brilliant Conrad Williams. Conrad's collection Born With Teeth was one of my highlights of last year, intelligent, literary horror that was enjoyable as much for the quality of the writing as it was for the stories themselves. As such, I was very much looking forward to this story, the third release in this series of so far very enjoyable short(ish) stories.
By way of a small digression, it is a joy to see this form of writing undergoing a resurgence. The length of these stories is just about perfect for the horror genre, long enough to develop plots and characters but not so long that padding is required. I love a good horror novel but I've ploughed through a couple of behemoths lately that frankly could have lost a couple of hundred pages without any real detriment to the plot. Much can be achieved in the shorter form and The Fox is a supreme example of this.
The set-up for the story is a familiar one with a family on a camping holiday, attempting to "connect" with nature. Connect they do, experiencing extreme weather conditions and encounters with the eponymous mammal.
Foxes have a well established connection with folklore and mythology, are regarded in some areas as familiars, possessing supernatural and magical qualities. Lars Von Trier's "love it or hate it" (I loved it) film Antichrist uses a fox in a pivotal scene (itself a "love it or hate it" moment - again, I loved it) and I have to admit I was put in mind of it when reading this story. It's a passing similarity though and certainly not to the detriment of the chapbook.
On the surface a man v nature story, there's so much more to this. The story's protagonist is certainly flawed, and it's his encounters with the fox which reawaken his guilty conscience, bringing back memories of his teenage years where his character was in part shaped by sexual frustration leading to acts of cruelty.
There's a hint of karma to the story too, the fox encountered in the present day setting may or may not be a supernatural entity, may or may not be "out for revenge" - in truth, it doesn't really matter, the ambiguity adds to the overall story, enhanced by this being a first person narrative from a fairly unreliable narrator. Chickens (pardon the pseudo-pun) definitely come home to roost in this tale.
The Fox is another quality piece of writing from an extremely talented writer. It's another quality product from the publishers and is one I highly recommend. You can buy it - or, better still a subscription, here.

Jolly Good Chaps...

There I was, all ready to post up a piece about how chapbooks are the saviours of horror fiction when someone else goes and does it before me. This piece on the excellent This is Horror website pretty much sums up my feelings about the current crop of high quality chapbooks available to all discerning readers of horror fiction. (And I wholeheartedly agree with the point that they're the perfect length to be enjoyed on a commute to work). This is Horror have started their own line of chapbooks to which I've eagerly subscribed, and if they're all of the same quality as the first - Joe and Me by David Moody, then it's a decision well made.

I haven't read anything by David prior to this but Joe and Me has certainly whetted my appetite for more. It's a slow burner of a story, a first-person narration from Si, the "me" of the title, about his relationship with wife Gill and 8 year old son Joe. Si is a house-husband, Gill is a research scientist, developing an airborne vaccination against potential biological weapons. When the military take over the research it's clear that things are going to go badly - and so it proves.
This is a cleverly written story, apocalyptic but small scale at the same time, focussing on the family unit. The characters are all well drawn and entirely believable so that when the story reaches its conclusion, and a choice has to be made which will have profound effects not just for the family but the whole world, the decision arrived at is entirely believable too - and incredibly dramatic.
This is a great start to the This is Horror chapbooks and I look forward to the next issue in the subscription. That's going to be Thin Men With Yellow Faces by Gary McMahon and Simon Bestwick - which is pretty much my definition of a dream team.
The second chapbook I had the pleasure of reading on the train this week was The Eyes of Water by Alison Littlewood, the latest publication from Spectral Press. As with all the other publications from Spectral, this is a classy piece of writing. Subtle and understated, it delivers its horrors slowly and atmospherically.
Set in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, it tells of traveller Alex who and his old friend Rick - a diver who has been exploring the cenotes, flooded underground caves. When Rick's body is found with horrific - though somewhat inexplicable - injuries, Alex is called on to identify the remains by Rick's sister, an act which leads him to explore the circumstances surrounding his friend's death.
This exploration leads Alex into the flooded caves himself where he discovers... Well, that would be giving away too much, suffice to say that, like Joe and Me, a decision has to be made at the end of this story too which will have profound consequences...
The Eyes of Water is beautifully written, evoking a wonderful sense of atmosphere and creating well drawn characters. It's another quality production from Spectral and more than maintains the high standard already achieved.
Next up for Spectral is What Gets Left Behind by Mark West, pretty much a cast-iron guarantee that those standards are going to be maintained prospectively.
Can't wait.