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CONCERNING THOSE WHO HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP

Name: CONCERNING THOSE WHO HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP
Author: Adam Soto
ISBN: 978-1-662-60135-4

GHOST STORIES

by Adam Soto ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 27, 2022

Haunting and complex if uneven.

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A collection of ghost stories in which the ghosts are imagined, metaphorical, and sometimes even real.

In “Wren & Riley,” a group of friends reunite after one of them kills her abusive husband in self-defense. But when they spend the night at her isolated home in Wyoming, they discover that death wasn’t enough to keep him away. In “Immanuel,” an enslaved Black boy grows up intertwined in an intense friendship with the White boy whose family holds him captive, but as the Civil War drags on, all illusions about the true nature of their relationship fall away. In “Sleepy Things,” Magdalena worries about her adult son’s relationship with his comatose girlfriend, when suddenly the girlfriend starts visiting Magdalena in her dreams. Soto’s new collection, as suggested by its subtitle, explores ghosts. Or, rather, hauntings, which may or may not involve literal ghosts. In “Death on Mars,” for instance, after a person dies, their personal AI starts to carry on in their place, a haunting that doesn't feel very different than a ghost simply because it's carried out by a computer. Similarly, in "The Prize," two writers plan to use a dead man's identity to publish their own work but find it makes them feel less real themselves. Sometimes Soto drifts a bit too far into metaphorical territory in those more realistic stories or waits until the very end to provide clarity. But where there is a more direct approach, as in “Immanuel,” “Sleepy Things,” and the title story (which does feature literal ghosts), his well-drawn characters with their nuanced battles with grief and hope shine brighter.

Haunting and complex if uneven.

Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-662-60135-4

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Astra House

Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022

Categories:

LITERARY FICTION | SHORT STORIES | PARANORMAL FICTION

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MEMORIALS

by Richard Chizmar ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 22, 2024

A pulpy, peek-between-your-fingers look at small-town America, powered by real grief.

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Three emotionally fragile college students head into the Appalachian wilderness to film a class project about roadside memorials.

Despite some fairly purposeful Blair Witch Project vibes and an atmosphere positively seething with menace, this slice of hillbilly horror has trouble sticking the landing. It’s a good premise, bordering on cliche: three students at Pennsylvania’s York College are teamed up in May 1983 by their eclectic American Studies professor Marcus Tyree to explore a topic of their choice related to American society. Our narrator is Billy Anderson, 19, an orphan traumatized by the death of his parents in a tragic accident, leaving him to be raised by his doting Aunt Helen. Troy Carpenter is curious but anxious, rattled by the death of his little brother in a drive-by shooting. Melody Wise is the oldest of the trio at 23, but is still reeling from the death of her mother. Their collective project is “Roadside Memorials: A Study of Grief and Remembrance,” a documentary for which the students plan to investigate these memorials and interview survivors, starting with Billy’s parents and their memorial in Sudbury, Pennsylvania. Other than an abundance of accidents, their subjects seem ordinary but the omens and totems that start appearing are anything but. Among these are an ominous hitchhiker, a flat tire, a dead animal, and a common symbol appearing on each memorial—all escalating events that lead to bloody and unexpected consequences. At first, the setup seems a little Scooby-Doo, replete with small-town secrets, concealed identities, and the odd unmasking. Our three leads are very likeable, but their bickering can lean towards the soap-operatic. Thankfully, Chizmar, a veteran at writing pedestrian horror in the vein of his occasional co-author Stephen King, gives the story enough of a whiff of the otherworldly, complete with an evil cult, to keep readers on edge before some late-stage twists strain the book’s hard-won authenticity.

A pulpy, peek-between-your-fingers look at small-town America, powered by real grief.

Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2024

ISBN: 9781668009192

Page Count: 480

Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024

Categories:

PARANORMAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GIRL ON THE PORCH
by Richard Chizmar

- BOOK REVIEW
A LONG DECEMBER
by Richard Chizmar

- BOOK REVIEW
OCTOBER DREAMS
edited by Richard Chizmar & Robert Morrish

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THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2024

edited by Lauren Groff with Heidi Pitlor ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 22, 2024

All hits and no skips is a tall order, but this strong, solid compilation is well worth a short story lover’s time.

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Pitlor ushers in her final installment as series editor of this long-running staple showcasing the year in short fiction.

Of all the kids at the literary lunch table, the anthology might have it the hardest. Wearing plaid with stripes, unpacking the random items in its lunch box—it’s hard for a cohesive personality to shine through, unlike those cool-kid single-author collections. But if readers are prepared for eclecticism—and since Best American Short Stories was established in 1915, we must be—these 20 stories have something for everyone. Guest edited by Groff, a seven-time Best American author, the collection includes some nods to short story royalty: Jhumpa Lahiri, Lori Ostlund, the late Laurie Colwin, and Jim Shepard are all represented. But as both Pitlor and Groff discuss in their introductions, Groff sent back Pitlor’s initial batch of stories asking for something “rawer, meaner, spikier”—stories with their own “weird logic.” (Groff’s description of this aesthetic preference lands better than her diatribe against the first-person point of view, which precedes 12 of 20 stories in first-person.) In finding weird, spiky stories, Groff leans hard—and often thrillingly—on early-career writers. There is Katherine Damm’s sparkling and funny “The Happiest Day of Your Life,” featuring a young husband freewheeling into drunkenness at a wedding reception for his wife’s ex-boyfriend. In Suzanne Wang’s inventive “Mall of America,” AI narrates a tale of corporate (and all-too-human) woe when an elderly man spends time after hours in the mall’s arcade. Madeline Ffitch’s “Seeing Through Maps” recounts the tense relationship between two neighbors with a complicated history. In Steven Duong’s “Dorchester,” a young writer has a poem go viral after an anti-Asian hate crime.

All hits and no skips is a tall order, but this strong, solid compilation is well worth a short story lover’s time.