This Haunted Heaven, by Reggie Oliver

 

9781912586608

Tartarus Press, 2024

240 pp

hardcover

It is not only a true pleasure to have a book published by Tartarus in my hands once again, but added to that is the joy of it being a book of collected stories by Reggie Oliver.  Long may they continue to be published -- I love his work. In This Haunted Heaven, as the blurb notes, the author "insinuates strangeness into the lives of his unwary protagonists and the results vary from a profound chill to outright horror."   Let me add that it's not just true about this book, but rather it is the case  in every single collection of his that I've read.   

My big test in any story collection is always whether or not the first one  makes me want to go on to the rest, and with "This Haunted Heaven," Oliver passes with flying colors.  Set on the Greek island of Skliros, within just a few lines of opening this tale, the author mentions the Mediterranean Sea as being "Wine-dark," as "the romantics will tell you, imagining they are quoting Homer," but it wasn't all that long into the story that my brain drifted to Robert Aickman.  If you consider the themes in that story, my brain wasn't too far off the mark, but this is clearly a Reggie Oliver creation.   In "This Haunted Heaven," a university don returns to the island to finish his book Middle Eastern Cults and Greco-Roman Culture," which he believes will be the "standard work on the subject," or else his "life has been wasted." In setting down "how it all began," he remembers the first time, as a young Classics student, he had gone to the island as part of an ongoing dig at a site which had been dedicated to the goddess Cybele.  I won't say any more, but I had to remind myself that this was just the beginning and I needed to buckle up if the remainder of the stories were going to be this disturbing.  Speaking of disturbing, I was thrown completely off guard by "Fell Creatures," which wins my award for most unsettling story in this book, and yet I read it not just the once but twice.  As this story opens, a retired, widowed history teacher wonders if having extreme wealth might "warp" the characters of the "very rich," and notes that there was one couple in particular who made him "ponder the question."  For some time, he had lived in a cottage in Norfolk next to Strellbrigg Hall, a "large, rambling, and ... rather run down" eighteenth-century farmhouse.  Its owner, Roger Mason-Fell, had sold the Hall to the Argents, a wealthy couple with "shedloads of cash" and three small children. Months later, the Hall has been redone and the woman in charge of the renovation has invited the narrator over to see the changes.  She has set aside some strange items left behind by the former owner: a dollhouse complete with "doll children," a book dating back to 1798 and a set of old portraits.  What happens once the family moves in I will not divulge, but when all is said and done, "Fell Creatures" left me utterly stunned.  This story alone is well worth what I paid for this book.  Holy crap.  I don't believe I will ever read something like this tale ever again, and if I do, it will more than likely come from the pen of Reggie Oliver.   Anyone who's read anything by this author knows that stage plays a role in a number of his stories, given the author's background as an actor, a director and a playwright, this is hardly surprising.  "South Riding" is one of these, which begins with the attempted suicide of Don, an actor who "had been out of work for months," with no money and no prospects for any other jobs.  In his mind, "he was an actor of nothing," and anything else was "meaningless" to him.   After a counseling session, he rings his agent and to his surprise, he learns about the need for a leading man  in "an old-fashioned summer rep company" in a town called Disston,  on the coast "in the South Riding of Yorkshire."     He's pretty positive there is no such place as South Riding, and he probably should have trusted his gut on that.  

title page, from my copy

The remainder of the stories in This Haunted Heaven are all excellent, although I have to say that I wasn't completely in love with The Cardinal's Ring  -- for me, it just didn't have the same oomph as the others, but that's just a personal taste thing.   Your mileage may vary.  What I love the most about his work is that he is not only a master of atmosphere, but also the way in which he brings together past and present,  creating a lingering sense of menace and danger.  As I usually find while reading his work, his writing is so good that while in the middle of one of these stories, the house could have caught fire and I would have waited to do anything about it until I finished reading.  There just aren't that many authors about whom I can honestly say that, especially modern writers, but it's true. The dustjacket blurb quotes Publishers Weekly about another of Oliver's collections, saying that his stories are for "Readers who like their horrors subtle but unsettling," and that description is right on the money.   He is and likely will remain one of my favorite writers ever.  

Very, VERY highly recommended!!! 

Malpertuis, by Jean Ray

 

9781939063702

Wakefield Press, 2021

originally published 1943

translated by Iain White

246 pp

paperback

Sometimes you just find that book that you know is not only unlike anything you've ever read but also makes you wonder just how in the hell you're going to find aything that ever tops it.   This past summer I had the great fortune to have read all four volumes of Belgian author Jean Ray's short-story collections published by Wakefield:  Whisky Tales, Cruise of Shadows: Haunted Stories of Land and Sea, Circles of Dread and The Great Nocturnal, and fell in love almost immediately into the first of these, but it is Malpertuis that's really won my soul as far as Ray's work goes.  

This post will not be a long one since the secret of what lies at the very core of the mystery of the house named Malpertuis should remain exactly that until discovered by the reader.    Divided into two main parts, the story begins with a short introduction written by a thief who had discovered pages of "yellowing, scribbled papers" in a pewter tube while pilfering a monastery.  As he sets out to "sift, to classify, to eliminate" the "work of colossal size,"  he also happened upon a "little notebook, in a neat scholarly hand,  bringing "the number of collaborators to four"  people responsible for the account as a whole. In putting it all together,  now, as he says, this thief-slash editor is "obliged" to add his name 

 "to the role of those Scribes who, without their knowledge (or almost without it),  have given Malpertuis a place in the history of human terror." 

After a brief introductory chapter detailing a shipwreck, the story begins in earnest with the narrative that "constitutes the kernel of the story, around which "the appalling destiny of Jean-Jacques Grandsire that the whole horror of Malpertuis revolves."   And now we're off and into Malpertuis itself, where Jean-Jacques' Uncle Cassave is quite literally on his deathbed with his family all around.  He is obviously a man of great wealth, but his family will not inherit any of it unless they all come to live in the house until their own deaths, and to sweeten the deal they will receive annual allowances.  They may not make any changes to Malpertuis, and there are a few other conditions as well, including that the last surviving inhabitant in the house will acquire Cassave's entire fortune.  

Notably, while this is Jean-Jacques' account, when the name of that house first arises, he becomes anxious:

"Malpertuis! For the first time the name has flowed in a turbid ink from my terrified pen! That house, placed by the most terrible of wills like a full stop at the end of so many human destinies -- I still thrust aside its image! I recoil, I procrastinate rather than bring it to the forefront of my memory!"

He continues:

"What is more, pressed no doubt by the brevity of their earthly term, human beings are less patient than the house; things remain after them, things -- like the stones of which accursed dwellings are made. Human beings are animated by the feverish haste of sleep tumbling through abbatoir gates -- they will not rest until they have taken their place under the great candlesnuffer that is Malpertuis."

There is obviously something terribly wrong about this house, but I had absolutely no clue as to just how wrong things were going to become.  After being plagued by bizarre visions, strange sounds and other occurrences, Jean-Jacques at one point comes to believe he's caught up in a "dream, a nightmare," begging "For the love of God, let me wake up!"  But this is no dream.    While it may sound as if this is prime haunted-house story material, perfect for relaxing curled up in your easy chair while reading,  for me that was definitely not the case -- it is so much more, well beyond your standard fare, with one character describing Malpertuis  as a "kind of 'fold in space...' " and an "abominable point of contact."  

As is the case with his short stories, Jean Ray writes here constructing layers upon interconnecting  layers as he gets closer to the heart of the tale of Malpertuis.   The result is an atmosphere of lingering dread, bleakness and full-on uncanny created by a blending of elements of the mystical, the mythical and the Gothic, leaving the reader with the feeling that perhaps you ought to mentally hold on to a ball of string or lay breadcrumbs as you navigate the labyrinth that is both this house and this story.   I realize that it may not be for everyone -- it does take a lot of patience and time spent thinking through this puzzle of a book and although I thought I'd sussed it a couple of times, what happens here went well beyond anything I could have possibly imagined.  The Wakefield edition has an excellent editor's afterword by Scott Nicolay that by all means should be left until after completing the novel unless, of course, you want to wreck things.  Malpertuis is a wild ride of a novel that I can most heartily recommend to readers of the strange.   I was completely entranced, off in another world altogether as I read it.   

Lost Estates, by Mark Valentine

 

"There would be tokens and talismans of the true country ..." 

--- from "The House of Flame"

9781783800476

Swan River Press, 2024

198 pp

hardcover

It's no secret that Mark Valentine is one of my favorite writers and now, with Swan River's publication of Lost Estates, I've added another gem of a book to my collection of his works.  If you haven't yet bought a copy, go to Swan River Press  and get one now. Seriously. 

In an insightful and informative conversation between this author and writer John Kenny, Valentine pleads "not guilty" to labeling the stories in this collection as "folk horror."  He would rather use the term "borderland" or "otherworld" stories, which he 

"came upon in contemporary 1923 reviews of Uncanny Stories by May Sinclair and Visible and Invisible by E.F. Benson,"

saying that these were "terms then in use and understood for occult and supernatural fiction."   In Valentine's opinion, "they do convey better the sense that can sometimes be felt in certain places of being close to a different realm."    I like it.  

It's not long into the first story before this notion of "being close to a different realm" makes itself known.  "A Chess Game at Michaelmas" finds our narrator leaving the train at Abbotsbury, where he has come at the invitation of a Mr. Winterbourne, with whom he had been corresponding about Winterbourne's "house and its particular custom" as part of his research.   The train was only the first part of the journey; he still has a five-mile walk to make, which he doesn't mind.  It is as "the grey chalk of dust" was being drawn across the day" that he felt not only a "change come over the country" through which he was traveling, but also a gradual sense of passing "into a different sort of space, a pause in the usual order of things."  The feeling lasts for only a moment, but "the impression lingered..."  He eventually makes his way via the hand-drawn map he was given to an old and somewhat shabby Georgian house where he and the owner discuss the unusual "rent" on the place.  It seems that that his family holds this place "from the King in return for a service or duty."   The narrator offers his opinions about the history of this particular sort of "custom," but what he doesn't realize is that before his visit ends, the rent is about to come due.  This story is absolutely fascinating, not just for the weird elements and the lore, but for me it's much more about the historical components and especially the yews.    "A Chess Game at Michaelmas" happens to be one of my favorite tales, but it's  another longer story at the end, "The Fifth Moon," that takes my number one spot,  pondering the lost treasure of King John.  As part of the Hambledon's Mysteries of History series that explores "historical mysteries" that also features the local landscape, a writer takes on the disappearance of  the wagons and carts ("the baggage train") carrying treasures belonging to King John in 1612 that were traveling through The Wash, an estuary in the marshy area along the West Norfolk coast of the North Sea.  The story goes that John had arrived at King's Lynn (at the time known as Bishop's Lynn) where his entourage had divided into two groups. The King and one group took the safer but longer road around through Wisbech heading for their destination, while the other took a "short cut" heading for Sutton across the estuary in a spot that was "passable for a few hours at low tide," getting stuck and sinking "into the salty mire."  Taking along a photographer, and temporarily borrowing another friend's old houseboat that had been beached on the marshes as a base,  the writer makes his way to the area where he points out that "out there ... if the tales be true, lies the most fabulous hoard ever known." While investigating the landscape and the story for themselves, the plan is also for the two to interview a couple of local "experts" on the lost treasure for their opinions on the matter.  But it isn't long before another, much darker, diabolical account of the story crops up that is vastly different than any they've heard.  It is a stunner of a story, and I was so taken with it that right away on finishing it  I made an intense trip down the rabbit hole for anything connected to the lost treasure of King John and the area of the Wash itself.  Just as an FYI, by way of more explanation about Valentine's interest in the subject, check out this article written by Valentine for Wormwoodiana.   

from Meandering Through Time

Between these two outstanding tales, there are ten more, and while won't go into all of them, there are a few I'll highlight,  beginning with "Worse Things Than Serpents."  At a crossroads with a signpost offering "Church" one way and "Garden" the other, the narrator of this story examines the church first, since "Norfolk churches are usually worth stopping for," then afterwards decides to go on to the garden.  Turns out there is no garden, but once back on the road he sees a "homemade roadside notice" calling his attention to "Brazen Serpent Books."  He makes his way to the empty old shed that is the book store, no proprietor in sight.  Eventually making a selection, he leaves a note that he is "Happy to Pay What is Due."  Given his experiences in the store, the price might just be a bit on the high side. In "Fortunes Told: Fresh Samphire" there are actually two narrators, one from a man searching for his friend Crabbe, who "has vanished from his small house near the sea, and yet he is still here," and the other from Crabbe himself.   Here, landscape, history, lore and of course the other-worldly all come together, making for an eerie and quite honestly extraordinary piece of writing.   One of the darkest (at least for me) entries in this volume is "And maybe the parakeet was correct," involving a journalist hoping to come up with something different by exploring European football.  Traveling through a few countries, he ends up in Paris where in the back streets looking for "narrow passages where the enfants, shall we say not-quite-so-good, might be found, the sort that kick a ball around in the street" while treating strangers with "insolence and derision."  He gets his wish, watching "six or seven urchins" at the end of an alley, but realizes that what he is seeing is no ordinary game.  For "The Readers of the Sands," the best description I can offer is "haunting," which is actually an understatement now that I'm thinking about it again.  It begins as

 "three travellers headed by their different ways to a causeway leading them to the house called Driftwood End, which stood on a spur of land above a vast canvas of sand." 

The first is a guide through the hazardous sands of the estuary, the latest "holder of an ancient office" known as "Bishop's Sandman."  The next is a "seer" who employs sand along with the patterns in the sand in her profession, and the third a woman who creates "hour-glasses" and "egg-timers" from "sea-wood and blown glass." She has also discovered a somewhat strange ability she has which she keeps to herself, one which she will have opportunity to use at a particularly critical moment during the gathering.   Their host is a certain Phillip Crabbe (and I have to wonder if this is the same Crabbe who  vanished in "Fortunes Told: Fresh Samphire") who lives at Driftwood End, and he has brought them all there for a particular purpose.  The remaining stories, "The House of Flame," "The Seventh Card," "Laughter Ever After," "The Understanding of the Signs," the titular "Lost Estates" and "The End of Alpha Street," are all excellent as well but I'm running long here. 

The blurb for Lost Estates notes that these tales offer "antiquarian mysteries, book-collecting adventures, and otherworldly encounters," as well as "mysterious landscapes, places of legend, and secret history."   Valentine has an incredible abundance of knowledge about ancient customs, history and lore that inform his stories; the joy is in seeing the connections he forges between that knowledge and the characters who interact with the landscapes which he so expertly renders here, either rural or city.  The stories themselves  have a truly special quality that I appreciate, meaning that once I start one, I'm deep into it and the outside world just vanishes.  He makes me feel like I am right there with the characters as they approach that (as the dustjacket blurb states) "unusual terrain,"   making it  beyond  difficult to put this book down at any time during the reading.  And if you get a Machen vibe, well ...

Very highly recommended -- Lost Estates is most certainly one of the best collections by this author I've read.  

Ringstones and Other Curious Tales, by Sarban

 

9781905784356

Tartarus Press, 2024 (first Tartarus edition 2000)

originally published 1951

289 pp

hardcover

I hadn't actually planned on reading this book this summer, but I had recently finished reading Circles of Stone: Weird Tales of Pagan Sites and Ancient Rites (ed. Katy Soar) as part of my ongoing reading of the British Library Tales of the Weird series and as it happens, that book began with an extract from Ringstones.   I realized that unlike the other authors whose stories were included there, I'd never read anything by Sarban, so I bought this volume from Tartarus Press and immediately on finishing it, wondered out loud how the hell I had not read him before.   I had already purchased the Tartarus edition of The Doll Maker and Other Tales of the Uncanny (2022) but once again, meeting the same fate as many books I buy, it had arrived, was shelved and other books came along that left it just sitting there -- as it turns out, a hugely serious, serious mistake.  Let me just say that after finishing Ringstones, the very first thing I did was to pick up The Doll Maker and devour it, after which I immediately ordered Sarban's The Sound of His Horn and Other Stories, which arrived earlier this week. 

First edition, 1951.  From ABAA

I won't offer much in the way of author biography of here -- that is best discovered by reading Mark Valentine's excellent Time a Falconer: A Study of Sarban  which I also bought directly after finishing Ringstones. It was originally  published by Tartarus in 2010, although I picked up the paperback issue from 2023.    John William Wall spent his working life in the British diplomatic service, and it was early in 1948 on a visit to England when he gave his future wife Eleanor two stories he'd written earlier in 1947 while working in Casablanca,   "A Christmas Story" and "Ringstones." She found a publisher, Peter Davies, and to make a long story short, eventually Wall added three more stories, "Capra," "The Khan," and "Calmahain," and his first book was published in March of 1951 under the name Sarban.  According to Mark Valentine, Sarban wrote to Mike Ashley that he had "had a liking" when he was young "for stories of fantasy and the supernatural -- H.G. Wells, and Walter de la Mare, for example," which had "prompted" him to "choose that vein" when attempting "something of my own (57)".  Trust me here, he succeeded. 

The best way to describe this book and its contents is to quote a small portion of the dustjacket blurb, which originally came from one of the book's "original reviewers" who said that these stories 

"have a curiously-imparted quality of strangeness; the feeling of having strayed over the border of experience into a world where other dimensions operate." 

 Like the very best examples of the weird tale, Sarban's work tends to begin in normal circumstances while slowly but surely taking the reader across that border into unexpected and disturbing territory.  

 The opening tale in this collection, "A Christmas Story," carries more than a tinge of melancholy,  but signals to the reader that he or she is about to delve into the realm of the strange.  It begins on a "hot, damp Christmas Eve" in Jeddah as a group of British diplomats dress up and make the customary "round of calls" which includes a stop at the home of Alexander Adreievitch Masseyev, a Russian exile who now works for the Arabian Air Force.  A bottle of Zubrovka labeled with a picture of the "European bison which seems to be the trade mark" sparks Masseyev's bizarre story about an experience he had in 1917 while a sea-plane pilot aboard a ship heading to Archangel. He and his friend were assigned the task of flying the plane to drop a message to a station where the ship was supposed to have made a call and could not due to dangerous ice conditions.  Of course, things go awry, the plane goes down, and the two decide to walk through the marshes of the "immense, sad taiga" to civilization, no easy feat as winter is closing in.   Luckily, they come upon a group of Samoyed hunters whom they believe will lead to them "to the nearest Christian men," but they encounter something entirely unexpected.  As Masseyev notes, "Yes, there are rare things in Russia," and of all people, he ought to know.   About "Capra" which I also quite enjoyed, it's best to say as little as possible, except perhaps that it's not too far a distance from the modern world of the 1920s to the realm of the old gods, especially when one is in Greece.  Set in England during World War II, in "Calmahain" two young teenaged children of the Maple family, Martin and Ruth,  whose lives are tightly restricted by the adults in their home and who are told repeatedly to stay in their own garden find a refuge in a game they play called "Journeys."  It means leaving their yard, but as neither is likely to tell on the other, the game is on.  They set a time limit that takes advantage of Mrs. Maple's "elastic after-breakfast hour with a detective novel," and each goes his/her own way.  The idea is that when they next meet, they will describe the fantastical journey each has made, and the journey becomes a fantasy tale to share with the other in great detail.  At the end of this particular adventure, Martin relates his travels but it's Ruth's story that takes center stage here, with Martin praising hers as "the best you've ever told."  He adds that he doesn't know how she made it all up, and her reply is that she didn't "make it all up."  Absolutely excellent story, one you may want to read a second time once you've finished it.   Correction -- you should read it again.   Of all of the stories in this book, it is "Ringstones" that clearly wins the prize for most disconcerting, and it happens to also be my favorite. Steeped in antiquity, in mythology and an added darker layer of subjugation and dominance (which seems to be part of Sarban's repertoire, as I noticed in The Doll Maker, but more on that book another time)  it  most strongly continues the thread of straying "over the border of experience" into another world altogether. Two friends, Piers and the narrator, have a conversation about Piers' good school friend Daphne Hazel, who has taken a summer job as a tutor/au pair taking care of "some foreign kids," specifically a teenaged boy and two younger girls.   Their discussion includes commentary on Daphne's sanity, with Piers mentioning the fact that she wouldn't be likely to "have come under influences that would encourage the germination of elvish fancies and eerie illusions" at the school she is attending, and that  he would be "much more likely to spin fairy tales for the fun of them than she is; and yet."   Piers asks his friend to read the contents of an exercise book that Daphne had written and sent to him, and it's only the next morning when the two friends talk about it that the significance of the state Daphne's mental health becomes clear.   At first it begins as a relatively benign story detailing her arrival at Ringstones Hall in Northumberland,  meeting the children Nuaman, Marvan and Ianthe and well as some of the outdoor games they play while her employer spends time on his research.  Soon, however, what sounds almost idyllic slowly turns dark and menacing as Daphne discovers that there's much more to this boy than she could possibly realize, and that she may "never come to the end of Ringstones." I'm being purposely vague here because you really must read this story to feel its full impact, and nothing I say can even come close. 

While I enjoyed some of the stories in this volume more than others,  what travels through all of them is the author's imagination and striking prose style that slowly and unexpectedly moves the reader into darker realms.  He raises the storytelling bar as he adds in elements of mythologies and the natural world that complement each other as well as the characters who populate his stories, all the while building in layers of the mysterious and the strange to create different worlds where, as he notes in "Ringstones," "some queer feet have danced."  This creative blending that marks his work as truly something of his own makes for compelling, unforgettable and unputdownable reading that stuck with me long after the last page had been turned.  

Beyond highly recommended -- truly a collection I will never forget.  

Robert Hichens -- one of three -- The Black Spaniel and Other Strange Stories

"These occult things can't always be told of, even when they are known." 

 97886010565

Stark House Press, 2023

245 pp

paperback

Not too long ago the very good people at Stark House Press sent me an ARC of a forthcoming collection of stories by Robert Hichens (1864-1959) entitled  The Folly of Eustace and Other Satires and Stories.  [As a quick sidebar, his name may also be found under the name of Robert Smythe-Hichens, changed to distance himself from the  quartermaster who was at the helm of the ill-fated Titanic.]   I first got a bee in my bonnet about Hichens after reading his "The Face of the Monk" (1897; included in this volume) some time ago, so when I saw that Stark House had published two volumes of this author's short stories, I had to have them, so that ARC is beyond appreciated.    Although he might be a bit purply in the prose department and long in the writing, the man could definitely spin a fine yarn.   He also excels in troubled souls -- this book is riddled with them.  

The title story (and my personal favorite of this bunch) is  "The Black Spaniel" (1905), a novella-length, dark and atmospheric tale that begins as our narrator (Luttrell) introduces two of his friends, Vernon Kersteven and Dr. Peter Deeming,  to each other while on holiday in Italy. Within a short space of time,  the three men become engaged over dinner in a conversation about a particular book written by a woman who also happens to be at the restaurant that evening.  Deeming finds it "wrongheaded and sentimental," noting that the author "appears to wish to elevate the animals above humanity, to take them out of their proper place."  Kersteven, on the other hand, has a great love for animals and cannot abide animal cruelty, saying that he has "known the longing to turn one whom I have been seen being cruel to a pet animal into that animal, and to be his master for a little while."   Deeming reveals that he has a black spaniel; Kersteven reveals that his dog, also a black spaniel,  had been stolen and sold to a place in London that "kept on hand" animals which eventually ended up under the vivisectionist's knife. Later he reveals his belief to Luttrell that intuition tells him that Deeming is cruel, and that he is sure that Deeming's own dog is suffering at the doctor's hands; he wants to actually see the dog for himself.  When he comes to London for that very purpose, things not only make a shift to the strange, but venture completely off into the deep end of weirdness.  I can't divulge too much about this particular story; let me just say that it was well beyond creepy.  Although the ending might be a bit on the foreshadowed side, had this been the only story in this volume, it still would have been worth what I paid for the book.     The second longish tale is  "The Hindu" from 1919.  The opening paragraph reveals that this story was related to the narrator by a London doctor who was a  "famous specialist in nervous diseases," who often tells "stories of the people who consult him," leaving out their real names.  The narrator  has collected some of these "cases" in a book; he is the one who gave the story its title.   After a "great pother about psychical research," a professor "launched an attack" on an investigator for the Psychical Research Society in the paper owned by one of these consultees, the owner, Mr. Latimer, decides to look into "psychic matters" for himself. His wife is a devotee of such things, so without her knowledge, and along with one of his investigators, Latimer attends a sitting with a psychic.  At first the "messages" he received were, as he phrased it, "sheer bunkum," until he got one about his wife.  That's when his troubles begin.  Although he tells the investigator that he didn't believe a word the medium had said, he decides to look into things.  According to what was heard at the sitting via a spirit named Minnie Hartfield, his wife had fallen out of love with him for some time, and she had "come under the influence of an Indian, a Hindu" by the name of Nischaya Varman.  It seems that Minnie had become Varman's mistress, but he'd dumped her when he'd met Mrs. Latimer, but Latimer does not want to bring any of this up with his wife.   It also happens that Varman (known throughout this tale as "The Hindu") had died three months earlier and at the next sitting with the psychic, comes through to speak to him for just a few moments.  Since that time, no matter where he goes or what he does, "The Hindu" is never far behind, but strangely, nobody else can see him.   In the final story in this volume, "Sea Change" (1900),  Sir Graham Hamilton, "a great sea painter," has left London to stay for a bit on a "little isle set lonely in a harsh and dangerous northern sea." It is the home of the Rev. Peter Uniacke, who had come to the island hoping to forget about a certain woman who had "disappeared" from his life.  Inviting Hamilton to stay with him, little by little Uniacke draws out the story of why Hamilton seems so haunted, and why he is "curiously persecuted by remorse." The reverend realizes that Hamilton will find exactly what he seeks on the island, and takes steps to ensure that he doesn't.  This one is an awesome ghost story, more poignant than frightening but still creepy enough to chill the blood.

from Internet Archive

The shorter stories are also well done, all with more than just a tinge of the supernatural.  As mentioned, "The Face of the Monk" is here, as are "The Silent Guardian" which would have been right at home in Henry Bartholomew's recent (and excellent)  anthology The Living Stone: Stories of Uncanny Sculpture (Handheld Press, 2023),  "Demetriaidi's Dream" from 1929 in which an elderly man dreams of horrible happenings in each and every room of the hotel where he's staying and "The Lighted Candles" from 1919, a dark tale of revenge and of course, ghostly happenings.

 Major applause to Stark House for putting these stories back into print.  I can most certainly recommend it very highly.   At the moment I am just on the edge of finishing a second Stark House volume of Hichens' tales, How Love Came to Professor Guildea and Other Uncanny Tales, which is also fantastic.  The Black Spaniel and Other Strange Stories is a delight for fans of older darkness (especially the title story),  and while the writing is definitely best left to the most patient readers and true-blue admirers of strange,  the stories themselves are created such that the horror contained within them slowly escalates, drawing the reader in deeper and deeper by the moment. They also delve deeply into the inner realm of the human psyche, which may be just as frightening.    It does take some time to get fully into these stories before the weirdness begins, but I didn't mind at all --  the wait was well worth it.   

I will be posting about How Love Came to Professor Guildea next week -- so far I'm loving it. 

The Secret Life of Insects, by Bernardo Esquinca

 

9781956321953

Valancourt, 2023

translated by James D. Jenkins 

illustrations by Luis Perez Ochando

198 pp

hardcover

I initally came across the work of Bernardo Esquinca in the first installment of this publisher's Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories.   His story  "Señor Ligotti" was a standout in that book, so when Valancourt announced the publication of an entire volume of this author's work, I was elated. 

This book ticks every box I have as a reader of the weird and the strange.  There  are no cut-and-dried solutions to the mysteries the author offers, leaving the stories on the open-ended side of things and allowing the reader's imagination to kick in and ponder the implications of what he or she has just read.    Many times, for me anyway, that's when the actual horror of the sitution creeps in, continuing to linger with me long after turning that last page.  In Esquinca's words, as quoted in the introduction by Mariana Enriquez,  ..." the best stories are like abandoned houses that nobody wants to stay in, but which you can't stop thinking about after spending a night in them."   That is exactly what you get here.  

All of the stories included here are terrific, but as usual, I have favorites.  At the top of my list  is "Pan's Noontide," which seamlessly blends together crime fiction, horror, mythology, modern environmental concerns and greed-based corruption to create an unforgettable tale.    Maya, a  woman with a failing marriage, has strange dreams, which she knows the psychiatrist she's seeing completely misinterprets.   At some point in the therapy, she realizes that the dreams are no longer nightmares but rather "a call."   In the meantime, her husband, a specialist in "classical mythology and ancient folklore" at the local university, has been called by an officer in the Homicide Division to assist him with what he believes is a "ritual killing"  of a forest ranger.    He needs Arturo's help to discern from photographs he has whether there might be "some symbolism" that might offer a lead or whether the police are simply "dealing with a psycho who thinks he's a conceptual artist."  Right away Arturo realizes that the pictures reflect a "clear reference to the god Pan," but he doesn't understand why the forest ranger was a target since Pan was a "protector of nature."   He also realizes that he's seen something like this before, and had just brushed it off.   This time around, he's definitely interested.   There are times when the author writes with a sort of Russian doll effect, with a story nestled inside of another story that in this case, can take you somewhere else altogether.  "Dream of Me" is a perfect example of this type of construction, highlighting another theme that is prevalent throughout this book, echoes of the past that find their way into the present.   The story revolves around a doll named Greta, sent by someone unknown and handed to the narrator by a detective who had been tasked to deliver it.  Evidently this was highly unusual, since finding his dolls was something done personally by the narrator, complete with "verifiable story behind it."  The detective knows only that he had received an anonymous phone call with instructions to track down the recipient, Daniel Moncada, who notes that it "is the first time a doll has come to me without my having to track it down."  He offers the detective double his fee to find the anonymous caller.  In and around the mystery of Greta's origins,  we get a peek inside of what appears to be Moncada's doll files.  It's not so much the dolls that are the focus of these stories, though, but rather the broken people who had owned them.   I have to say I tend to run from creepy doll tales because I just don't like them but in this case, Esquinca strays away from the obvious and makes this one such a very human story that I couldn't help but be affected on a gut level.    I also run from zombie-ish type things but "Tlatelolco Confidential" also defies stereotypes and injects the past into the present.   After the 1968 student massacre at Mexico City's  La Plaza de las Tres Culturas,  la "convergencia de tres etapas importantes en la historia de México: la prehispánica, la colonial y la conteporánea,"  a small group of soldiers waiting for the bodies to be taken away experience something incredible -- thirteen of the dead students rise up, "bleeding from their mouths and baring their teeth" with the intention of attacking the soldiers.  Firing on them again, the soliders succeeded in "re-killing" the students.  Even stranger, when the crew came to take the bodies away, they counted twelve, not thirteen bodies, something one of them would later "swear on his mother" was true before noting that "if one of them was able to get back up and escape, there's a goddamn walking corpse loose in the city."   Given the history of this location,  perhaps something hungry may have been awakened by the blood flowing in the plaza that day.  And finally, from my list of favorites is "Where I'm Going It's Always Night."   Everardo, who is driving along the highway in a van,  sees a guy with a backpack walking along the side the road, evidently not interested in hitchhiking, but he offers him a lift anyway.  In exchanging the usual conversation,  Jacobo, the passenger,  tells the driver that he is a spelunker and a bounty hunter, retrieving bodies of cave explorers who'd for some reason or other had died during their caving experience, unable to get out.   He's on his way now to do just that, heading to the mountains.  Or at least, that's what he claims.  

from El Giroscopo Viajero

 

Esquinca's stories are set in his native Mexico, and he incorporates his country's history, landscape and mythologies into his work, and bravo to James Jenkins for his excellent translation.   At the same time, his subjects are definitely human, sharing much of the same anxieties and apprehensions as the author's readers outside the borders of his homeland.    His work reaches depths that move well beneath the world we live in and uncovers hidden, unseen layers we don't see, as well as  the small cracks in the universe that his characters don't know exist until they tumble into them.   Even more so, he joins the ranks of my favorite writers whose work leaves me with the sense  that the old ground has somehow shifted along with my understanding of how things actually are.  The stories are fun with more than a hint of seriousness in what the author's trying to accomplish with them; they also acknowledge the influence of writers who came before him, as noted in the introduction, which you should definitely not miss.  

All in all, a fine collection of stories by an extremely talented writer, and a book I most highly recommend, especially to people who, like me, love quality translated fiction that makes you think.  It's downright creepy as well, aided by the excellent illustrations, so it's a book that will definitely appeal to readers of horror on the intelligent end of the spectrum.  

Nocebo, by R. Ostermeier

 

9781739733940

Broodcomb, 2023

281 pp

hardcover

First things first:  a mega thank you to Jamie Walsh -- you know why. 

I had actually started this post Tuesday of this past week, and I had meant to finish it long before today,  but I've had a weird week of waking up at 4:30 in the morning and have subsequently been  living in a haze from the lack of sleep.  Today's the first day of clarity since.  

 The latest volume published by the phenomenon that is Broodcomb Books is Nocebo, a collection of stories that I've been raving about to anyone who will listen.  Once again we find ourself back at the Peninsula, not surprising since Broodcomb Press is, as noted on its website, the "House publisher " for the region.  First time visitors should know that the Peninsula,  according to a quote from the author's Therapeutic Tales,  is  a place that is "welcoming to the unusual."  

Three new stories grace this book along with a fourth, "Upmorchard," which was published in 2021 as a limited-run hardcover  book.  The publisher made it very clear at the time that Upmorchard was "never to be reprinted as a standalone volume," so anyone who missed it at the time has a second chance now. I urge you to take it.   You can read my post about it if you'd like, but the bottom line is that it was such a disturbing story that I had to stop reading for a couple of days after finishing it because I needed a mental reset.  It still bothered me this time around with the second reading, especially in the context of what comes before it. 

photo from Ancient Yew Group

In "Winn's Clock," which opens this volume, there is a particular moment in which the narrator finds himself in conversation with a green-eyed girl, and wonders if  his participation in that discussion, "having grown up on the peninsula, with its long history of strange tales..."  might " close a door" between the fields he knew and the fields he "knew not -- vanishing behind me so I'd never be able to return."   I tabbed this particular passage when I'd gone back to reread this story after finishing the book because it hit me at the time that in its own way,  it characterizes what happens throughout all of the stories in Nocebo. 

Although I can't really reveal too much about this or any other story here since these tales (as are all written by this author)  are experienced, rather than just read,  I can offer a slight peek into the three that are new as of this reading.   "Winn's Clock" is  a prized possession in the narrator's otherwise poor household, belonging to his grandfather Winn, who had "been largely itinerant for much of his life, spending time on the seas and for long periods travelling with the caravans."  People used to say about Winn that "He wanders" which as the narrator notes, "had a financial effect on us."  It was only the occasional "windfall" that would save the family, but like the clock, the origin of the money was a mystery to the boy until he was later enlightened by his uncle.   The clock itself was a unique piece, with "no winder or hole where a winding key might be inserted," and with steel "seemingly without join or access" that was always "bright as if new-worked." The only problem with the clock was in the wood, which "suffered from woodworm," yet was never destroyed.  Winn worked at the problem but could never fully solve it, as new tunnels would appear in different parts of the wood after one part had been fixed.  An offhand remark from the boy's mother leads to an act of love and kindness on his part that will change everything for this family, with long-lasting effects.     "Moving the Yew" is my favorite, actually remaining in my head for a full two days after reading it and preventing me for the duration from  moving on to the third story.  Members of The Yew Society, "whose remit was the preservation of yews on the peninsula," have taken on the project of moving a certain yew tree near Buddyn, due to a change in the course of the river.   The narrator, R. Ostermeier, on a break from his counseling duties, is asked to join his friend and the others in the group as they move the tree "the old way," with the only modern equipment a backhoe.  Doing it this way was the idea of the project manager, Rebecca Birdwhistell, as "she was insistent on traditional methods." The project gets underway and the yew is uprooted, but something is left behind in the earth, "right in the centre of the tree."  As the narrator notes, "Only then did the implications come clear. Birdwhistell had said the yew might be over a thousand years old, perhaps older still."  But there is much more to come for these people, and the implications will be become even clearer as the object is opened and its contents revealed.  The story takes  place over several days as the tree is moved; in time even small things will come to take on the greatest significance for a few members of the group, as "the whole area of land came to life. Or took hold of people."   Even more significant is the epigraph by Rainer Maria Rilke that precedes this story:

"... Life that is not concerned with us celebrates its festivals without seeing us, and we look on with a certain embarrassment, like chance guests who speak another language."

 Trust me here, it's absolutely killing me to say nothing about this incredible story, which like "Winn's Clock," has deep connections to history, nature and ritual.  The final story is "Mommick," about which writer and real-time reviewer Des Lewis says "... we have a dark masterpiece on our hands."  I have to wholeheartedly agree (and in a Facebook-post conversation with him I did agree)  with his assessment -- I have never nor do I believe I will ever again read something quite like this one.  If the first two stories left me feeling especially unsettled and uneasy, "Mommick" took me completely over the edge, making me feel that there must be some way beyond ordinary verbiage to express what this story did to me.  This story outdarks both of its predecessors, and as deeply as "Upmorchard" affected me, "Mommick" is even more frightening in its implications.  At this juncture I will offer readers the same warning that comes with all of the Broodcomb books  -- "it might not be for you." The narrator of this story is Bartoš Gerard, named after his grandfather, a photographer who had a love for "single subject focus."  His work found its way into books he'd put together, one of which, Murder Ballads, was a favorite of the narrator's as a boy.  In this book, he set models, dressed in "ordinary street clothes," into tableaux depicting various murder scenes, "some unwisely or unfortunately close to notorious crimes of the  time."  His grandfather's book, Scarecrows, on the other hand,  "terrified" him, filled with photos of "a succession of sinister figures in stark black-and-white, few what might be called regular."  As he notes, "To a child, those photographs were dream poison."   While in his twenties, a small publisher put together a bibliography of his grandfather's books, and the narrator discovered a book he'd known nothing about, a volume called 6:20.   It kept with his grandfather's "single subject focus" approach, but the photos were not his work, and he was the subject -- "naked and grotesque."   He has no idea where the photos originated, he doesn't remember having the photos taken, and they were not the object of blackmail.  His friend had collected each one as they arrived in the mail.   Starting with the photos themselves, his grandson decides that he needs to find out what he can about this "episode" that had changed his grandfather's life, setting off on a quest to discover what he can.  This is where it all turns very weird, and that is all I'm going to say about this one.   

The dustjacket notes that "Winn's Clock" and "Mommick" draw from deep wells of rural disquiet," and that's an understatement, especially with "Mommick."  The ending of "Winn's Clock" left my jaw on the floor, I'm sure, and with "Mommick," despite the darkness, it is on many levels a most poignant and very human story. It completely scared the holy bejeezus out of me while simultaneously hitting me very hard on a gut, psychological level.   "Moving the Yew" hit some deep level of resonance within, largely due to my own interests in myth, folklore and ritual, as well the author's focus on the connections between humans and the natural landscape through time.   When I closed the book after finishing it, I said to my husband that this may be the best Broodcomb book yet, but as he replied back,  "you say that about each one."   This time I'm positive.  Beyond positive.  Well beyond positive.  

So highly recommended that it's off the charts highly recommended, and anyone who has become a fan of Broodcomb and the Peninsula should definitely not miss Nocebo.  It will also appeal to readers of the strange and the weird, and quite honestly, I don't know how the author continues to produce such great, intelligent work but please, keep it coming.  

Polar Horrors: Strange Tales from the World's Ends (ed.) John Miller

9780712354424

British Library, 2022

340 pp

paperback

It's time for another book in the British Library Tales of the Weird series.   This time we're off to the remoteness of the Arctic and the Antarctic with Polar Horrors: Strange Tales From the World's Ends.  My geek self has a particular fascination with the history of polar exploration, which after a while led to a particular fascination with fiction set in these locations as well, so this book is tailor made.   With the exception of one story from 2019 that editor John Miller has chosen to include here, the remainder of the stories range from the 1830s through the 1940s, with the earliest in the section entitled  "North," reflecting, as Miller notes in his introduction, the "earlier arrival of the Arctic than the Antarctic into European and American writing."  

 Surprisingly, there were only two stories that I'd read before, leaving nine here that are new to me.  The first of these is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's well-known "Captain of the Pole Star," followed by Harriet Prescott Spofford's "The Moonstone Mass," in which a young man decides to attempt the Northwest Passage.  About that one, all I will say is that anyone should think twice before setting sail on a ship named Albatross, especially when heading into unknown territory.  My favorite stories (in order of appearance) begin with  "Skule Skerry" by John Buchan (1928), from his The Runagates Club, which I own but haven't yet read.   An island at  "61° latitude in the west of the Orkneys" is where this story is situated.  The narrator of this story is an ornithologist, Anthony Hurrell,  one of a group of men at a gentlemen's club in London who regale each other with their stories.   He had gone to the Norland Islands one year for the spring migration of certain birds, but unlike other people who "do the same," he had in mind something quite different.  Taking his cue from prior research he'd done and using the Icelandic Saga of Earl Skuli as a guide, he'd  found  a reference to a certain "Isle of the Birds," which was located "near Halsmarness ... on the west side of the Island of Una."  Further research nets a mention of "Insula Avivum... quae est ultima insula et proximao, Abysso," by a "chronicler of the place."  Intrigued, he made his way to Una, and finds exactly the place that had "been selected for attention by the saga-man," Skule Skerry.  He is told that it has an "ill name" --  that "Naebody gangs there," and that "the place wasna canny." While highly atmospheric, it's really all about the journey in this one.  Next on the list and deserving of top honors is the incredibly unsettling "The Third Interne" by Idwal Jones (1938), which appeared in Weird Tales in January of that year, listed as "A brief tale of a surgical horror in the Asiatic wastes of northern Russia."   As Miller notes about this tale, the setting "outside the established limits of civilisation" is perfect for the secretly- unfolding of "darker enterprises." In this story, a group of three science "internes" who had studied under Pavlov set their sights on working with "a far greater scientific man than he,"  a certain Dr. Melchior Pashev, "a brilliant worker in neurology."  Dr. Pashev, as "the third interne" relates, had once cut off a dog's head and managed to keep it alive for three years. It had "functioned beautifully," barking, drinking water, blinking its eyes "in affection," just like a normal dog despite the lack of a body. The three worked hard and saved the money they made in their jobs and finally borrowed enough to get them to Yarmolinsk, where Pashev was busy with his work.  Welcomed warmly, after a while their devotion grows to the point where it knows no bounds.  And that's about all I will say about this one, except that the ending turns things back on the reader, where he or she must judge between two alternatives.   This is one of the strangest and most eerie mad scientist stories I've ever encountered, and not only gave me the shivers but made me feel queasy.   Also deserving of high marks is  John Martin Leahy's "In Amundsen's Tent" from 1928, a story of an horrific series of events left behind in an account "set down" by Robert Drumgold, a member of the Sutherland expedition aiming to be the first to the south pole at the same time that Scott and Amundsen were vying for the same honor.  It begins with a question that asks

"What was it, that thing (if thing it was) which came to him, the sole survivor of the party which had reached the Southerrn Pole, thrust itself into the tent, and issuing, left but the severed head of Drumgold there?" 

Having discovered and read the journal left behind by Drumgold, the narrator of this story and his comrades had decided to suppress the parts that dealt with "the horror in Amundsen's tent," so as not to "cast doubt upon the real achievements of the Sutherland expedition."   But he's decided that it is now time to release it to the world, and thus his story of horror begins.  Don't be surprised if you find something familiar in this one.  

from Patrick Cullis Photography

Three more stories of note,  presented here in no particular order,  deserve a mention.    Although modern (2019),  Aviaq Johnson's  " Iwsinaqtutalik Pictuc: The Haunted Blizzard" is a reminder that there is more than a measure of truth in indigenous legends, which in this case, have seemed to have been forgotten by all except children and elders, with disastrous consequences. I am always  happy to see indigenous literature in any volume, so cheers to the editor.   "A Secret of the South Pole" by Hamilton Drummond (1901) begins with a visit to a former sea captain during a downpour.  The captain loved to tell stories, and on this day, what he's about to say has to do with a strange artifact he calls "the gem of my whole kit."  If any one could tell him what it is, he has offered to give that person "the whole shanty." All he knows about it is that it's "a bit o' the South Pole" and launches into a story about how it came to be in his possession. Once upon a time he  and two fellow sailors were stuck out in the ocean  in an open boat, when they encountered a derelict ship and decided to go on board.  As he tells his attentive audience, "what came after was queer, mighty queer, that I'll admit."  No Flying Dutchman lore here, just weirdness.   Mordred Weir's "Bride of the Antarctic" (1939) centers on an "ill-fated expedition" headed by "Mad Bill Howell," who had forced his wife against her will to go with him to the coast of Victoria Land.  Legend has it that Howell was a cruel man, and during his expedition all perished during the long Antarctic night except Howell and the cook, who were both saved when the ship came to pick them up.  Now another expedition has come to the same place, where strange happenings begin just as the winter darkness falls.  

from ScienceNewsExplores

And now the difficult part, where I'm left with three stories that I just did not care for, but your mileage may, of course, vary.   To be fair, they all certainly fit the bill of "Strange Tales," they are set at one of the "World's Ends," and the main characters of these stories did technically experience some sort of polar horror, each in his or her own way.  Therefore, the editor did his job.  But  as a reader of the weird and the strange, these three just left me cold and unfazed.   In my way of thinking, the opening story of an anthology should set the tone for what's to come, making  me excited about getting to the rest.  Unfortunately, that didn't happen here.  "The Surpassing Adventures of Allan Gordon" by James Hogg started out well, but its novella length and a polar bear with the name of Nancy saving the main character's skin time after time just didn't do it for me.  Quite honestly, this isn't the story I would have led with.    "Creatures of the Night" by Sophie Wenzel Ellis and Malcolm M. Ferguson's "The Polar Vortex" are, like "The Third Interne," tales which concern themselves with rather outré science for the time, but while Jones' story had the power to seriously disturb, these two were lacking in that department.   

from my own designated British reading room

That's the thing about anthologies, though -- they truly are a mixed bag so you don't know what you're going to get.  The eight stories I did enjoy were still well worth the price of the book, so I can't complain too much.   And then there's this:  I've read and loved two other anthologies in this series edited by John Miller (Tales of the Tatttoed: An Anthology of Ink and Weird Woods: Tales From the Haunted Forests of Britain)  so if I wasn't exactly enamored with three stories  in this book, he's still provided me with hours and hours of solid reading entertainment, as has the series as a whole.  

Recommended. 

 

Strange Epiphanies, by Peter Bell

 

9781783807482

Swan River Press, 2021 (originally published 2012)

197 pp

paperback

I've been more than a bit depressed lately, coping with the recent death of one of my friends, and figured I needed to get off my can and do something other than simply sit and stare into space.  My go-to therapy is cleaning and organizing, and the target this time around was the bookshelves in our bedroom.  While going through each and every book in a "this stays, this goes" sort of mode, I came across quite a few unread volumes (including this one) that I had   haphazardly shelved  behind other books and promptly forgot about. Peter Bell's  Strange Epiphanies was one of these.  Off of its shelf space it came, and grabbing a cup of tea, I settled in to read, not putting it down until sadly and all too soon, it was over.  

From the first page onward (and as is the case with all of the stories I've read by this author so far),  what stands out is the author's stunning evocation of place.   In his introduction to Strange Epiphanies, Brian Showers, the founder of Swan River Press, notes that what Bell does here is to

"scratch beneath the top soil to unearth the true genius loci -- the unsettling spirit of place -- and show its effects on those who tread these exposed surfaces.  Landscapes, that with each turn, Peter skews and rearranges into something resembling nightmare."

Strongly allied with his emphasis on genius loci, Bell's work here also draws on history as well as local/ traditional folklore including (but not limited to) Beltane fire rites in the first story "Resurrection" -- the opening of which reminded me so very much of the beginning of Robert Aickman's "The Trains,"  selkies in "An American Writer's Cottage"  and even vampires in "A Midsummer Ramble in the Carpathians" which I'll discuss later.  Upping the eerieness, his stories are populated with characters with troubled, damaged psyches who, in the isolated settings in which they find themselves, are more than susceptible to the influences and strange pulls the genius loci seems to exert on them.  In this sense, I would argue, the landscape (with the inclusion of its spirit) can be viewed as a character present in each tale.  

Sithean Mor, aka Angels Hill, Iona.  From Strange Outdoors

Each and every story included here is beyond brilliant, but I did have a few favorites which in my mind were all perfect in every sense of the word.   In "The Light of the World"  a man who has spent time since the death of his Rowena in "pursuit of exotic avenues of escape"  has decided it's time to "regain the simple pleaures."  Looking to find peace, he retreats to his "spiritual home" in village of Bleng in the Cumberland Mountains foothills, "beneath the spruce-clad heights of Blengdale Moor."  On this particular day, he is walking an old forest route along the edges of the moor, looking at "the light of the winter solstice," which "seemed to speak of something beyond the veil"  when an early twilight falls.  Already in a "melancholy mood," he knows the return journey will  be risky: a snowstorm threatened, trees were bending because of the wind, and he's unsure about cutting through the forest on an untested route.  Also on his mind is the strange couple he'd seen earlier that no one else recognized, but that he'd encountered years earlier elsewhere, "on the other side of Europe."  That is really about all I can say about this story, except that a) it begins with an epigraph by Arthur Machen which is a huge clue and b) it is one of the most eerie stories in this volume.  Next up is   "A Midsummer Ramble in the Carpathians," in which Julia P. Flint, a modern-day "dealer in antiquarian books and maps, specialist in topography" stumbles upon what the Leyburn book auction catalogue described as "Private journal. Handwritten. Travelogue. Carpathian Mountains. No date. Incomplete..."   Letting it sit for a few weeks, she finally decides to examine it, and can't believe her luck. It seems that she's acquired an unpublished travel account by Amelia Edwards, which turns out to be a "record of a journey through the Southern Carpathians."   As she reads through it, what emerges is an intensely-atmospheric account "that could have been taken from the pages of a Gothic novel..."  as Edwards and her companions make their way through remote "wilderlands,"  a journey Flint will soon replicate herself.  And finally, there's   "M.E.F.," a story narrated by a person grieving for his partner Alida, now gone three years and whom he misses with "a deep consuming passion."  M.E.F. (Marie Emily Fornario) was a woman who believed that she'd lived on the Hebridean island of Iona "in a previous life," and who, in 1929,  came seeking "spiritual calm."  Intending to stay only a few days, she "never left."  She was found dead on a night in November, her body left in a peat hollow.  Rumor had it that a cairn had been erected at the site where her body had been discovered.  There is, of course more to the story of M.E.F. revealed in this story, and our narrator admits to an "obsessive fascination" with her.  He has come to the island, about which he detects "a strange otherness,"  journeying there every November  since Alida's death, "on her anniversary," the two having originally found there way to Iona while exploring "the antiquarian sites of the West."  It was at that time they had originally discovered  M.E.F's grave; since then, our narrator has read more about M.E.F.,  leading him to undertake a search for M.E.F.'s cairn. No more about this story except to say that I read it twice and got a serious case of the shivers both times. There is also an excellent essay about the real M.E.F. at the end of this book, which should not be missed. 

Going back to this book's introduction, Brian Showers says that the stories in Strange Epiphanies are "stories of revelation," which may bring to mind "mystical enlightment or awe," but he warns readers that "we must always remember that not all revelations are welcome ones."  There is just something in the way that the author captures the sadness, loneliness and isolation of his characters throughout this book that truly speaks to me, especially now in my own life;  combining those very human traits with the resonances that in these stories seem to emanate from the landscape itself is a stroke of genius on his part.   Bell's work here is truly one of the best works to come from Swan River Press, and it is a story collection I know I will read again in the future.  

So very highly recommended -- I can't even begin to express how very much I loved this book.  

Holy Ghosts: Classic Tales of the Ecclesiastical Uncanny (ed.) Fiona Snailham

 

"The past seems so close here..."

9780712354134

British Library, 2023

279 pp

paperback

I have a serious addiction to the British Library Tales of the Weird series, so much so that I tend to preorder the books often months ahead of  their scheduled release.  I actually just got one in yesterday's mail, The Uncanny Gastronomic (ed. Zara-Louise Stubbs),  which I will likely set aside to read in October when I do a month of spooky reads.   The other book I'm looking forward to landing at my doorstep soon  is The Lure of Atlantis (ed. Michael Wheatley) which sounds like good, pulpy fun and which will likely also be saved for October.   December brings Circles of Stone: Weird Tales of Pagan Sites and Ancient Rituals (ed.) Kathryn Soar. As long as the British Library continues to publish these books, I will continue to buy them. * 

Today's post  is about Holy Ghosts: Classic Tales of the Ecclesiastical Uncanny, edited by Fiona Snailham, which I finished a couple of weeks ago or so.  The title alone should offer enough of a clue about what you're about to read, but to clarify, the editor spells it out in her introduction, saying that this book

"presents a collection of stories published between 1851 and 1935. The tales offer accounts of holy places filled with horror and believers tormented by terrifying ghosts."  

 The introduction, course, reveals other considerations and various themes to take into account while reading these stories, but I will leave these for prospective readers to discover.  

I've had the pleasure to have previously read six of the eleven tales presented in this book.  Even before opening this anthology and perusing the contents, I just knew M.R. James would be among the authors and I was correct.  The James selection was "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral," a perfect pick for this volume, and a story that never fails to chill me to my bones.  By the way, back in 1971, this story was dramatized as "The Stalls of Barchester,"  the first of the BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas annual series, and, of course, I had to watch it again. Cue serious spine hackles.  I have it on dvd, but it is available on youtube as well.    "The Poor Clare" by Elizabeth Gaskell and E. Nesbit's "Man-Size in Marble" are also found among the previous-reads.  Nesbit's story has been anthologized so often that although I love it, it's just a bit on the disappointing side to see it here yet again, while "The Poor Clare" runs to novella length at 70 pages,  sort of interrupting the flow of the book as a whole.  Rounding out the remaining three are Le Fanu's "The Sexton's Adventure," an awesome little tale which is one of his Chapelizod stories, "The Face of the Monk," by Robert Hichens [sidebar:  I read this story first in The Zinzolin Book of Occult Fiction (Snuggly Books, 2022;  ed. Brendan Connell) and I really need to read it again] and "The Duchess at Prayer" by Edith Wharton, which is quite good but sadly, I saw the ending of this one coming. 

the Barchester Stall cat carving, from Cathode Ray Tube

From  Mrs. Henry Wood comes my first unread story, "The Parson's Oath" (1855), a tale that involves two young people in the village of Littleford.  Vicar  John Lewis and school teacher  Regina Winter discover they have feelings for each other.  The problem is a certain Brassy Brown, who has designs on Regina and has "sworn" to marry her, and will keep his promise "by fair means or foul."   She wants nothing to do with him and just knows that "he will kill me, some of these days," and jokingly makes the vicar swear an oath to give her a "Christian burial" if that should happen. The vicar believes it's a joke, at least at first ...  I knew where this was headed as well,  and the same happened with "A Story Told in a Church," by Ada Buisson.  This story was first published in 1867 in Mary E. Braddon's  Belgravia Annual for Christmas, and would be a good choice for modern anthologies of Victorian Christmas Stories.   It's Christmas Eve and it seems that a governess, Miss Montem,  and a few young girls in her care have been the victim of "dreadful boys" who have locked them inside of a church while they'd been "decking" the place "with holly-wreaths and shining laurel."  Night is on its way, and while rescue is certainly at hand, Miss Montem is "deadly pale" and  ill at ease.  When prompted to tell a story, she takes the girls back ten years to when she and her fellow schoolgirls were "obliged" to remain at school over Christmas.  The schoolmistress, not wishing for anyone to feel disappointed, arranges a small party with a few local village families.   Miss Montem remembers that that  Christmas Eve began "joyously," and she'd "never since" laughed "with such freehearted joy."  The night takes a very dark turn, however, with the arrival of the fiancé of one of two cousins, who decides to invite himself to the party and proceeds to be less attentive to his betrothed than to her cousin.   "In the Confessional," by Amelia B. Edwards (1871) is a much stronger story, which begins as a man who prefers to amble in less tourist-oriented places finds himself in Rheinfelden, an "old walled town" where the inhabitants are preparing for a fair.  Trying to find an inn, he comes to a "little solitary church" where he stops for a while.  It is near the altar that he sees a plaque commemorating a certain priest by the name of Chessez and finds himself captivated by its final line --  "He lived a saint; he died a martyr."   On the way out of the church, he decides to take a look at the confessional, opening the door.  To his surprise he encounters a priest within with "fixed attitude and stony face," with "terrible" glaring eyes, saying absolutely nothing.  The encounter disturbs our narrator to the point where he decides he must discover something of this man's life.  What he finds is murder, madness and of course, a ghost. 

from Wikipedia

Rounding out the final two, sadly I actually didn't care for "An Evicted Spirit" by Marguerite Merington, but choosing to save John Wyndham's (yes, that John Wyndham) "The Cathedral Crypt" to finish off Holy Ghosts was brilliant;  at only seven-and-a-half pages, it packs a powerful punch that really highlights the notion that (as expressed in the introduction) "holy settings" are not always places of sanctuary.  Married for only three weeks, Clarissa and Raymond are in Spain and come upon a medieval cathedral.  Clarissa finds it frightening, unlike Raymond, who wants to go inside and take a look around.  Putting aside her fears, she accompanies her husband inside but still has "an overwhelming desire to get back to the familiarities of noises and people."  Unfortunately, by the time it's time to leave, they find themselves stuck inside with no way out. That is all I'll say, except for this: Clarissa is sadly on the money when she notes that "the past seems so close here ... Somehow it hasn't been allowed to fade into dead history."

I love the concept behind this book, as well as the majority of the editor's choices for inclusion.  There is something here for everyone in the range of uncanny tales presented, including the weird, the strange and the ghostly.  Do not miss the introduction; I didn't go into it as much in this post as I would have liked to for time reasons, but really, it's best discovered on one's own.  The first story definitely whets the appetite for more and sets the tone of what's coming next, and the book as a whole was certainly most difficult to put down.   I've sung the praises of this series so often that all I have left to say is that this volume is a no-miss, especially for regular fans of these books published by the British Library and for  aficionados of older ghost stories.  It's an anthology I can most certainly and without hesitation highly recommend.  

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*If you're in the US and you want paper copies of these books but don't want to wait for them to be published here, Blackwell's is a good place to pick them up.  Like the now defunct  😢 Book Depository, shipping to the US is free.