Ominous, masterfully conceived psychological fiction.
De Voe’s short story collection features characters in devilish conundrums.
The short fiction collected here offers a series of themes and plot twists that are delightfully odd, unexpected, and borderline macabre. In the subtly effective opener, “Shutter,” a protective ghost perched in a tree observes the park bench interactions between a young struggling female actor and an elder with menacingly predatory intentions. “Tastemakers,” with its embedded satire of artistic communities, depicts grisly performance art set in a museum where crowdsourcing-funded artists synchronize their suicides while “the spectators all gasp.” The theme of family recurs frequently; an old witch in “The Scissors of Hope and Despair” may or may not have dementia, like her cocky granddaughter believes, but a strategic and revealing game of chess offers proof positive. One of the book’s longer tales, “Mom of the Year,” also touches on family bonds when an outspoken, award-winning mother of six has her standards challenged during a live reality TV talk show. The Brooklyn mother featured in “Left Brain” struggles with raising a young son stricken with a condition that limits his communication to numbers. Increasingly panicked, she fears that “his right brain was slowly eating his left brain like a psychopathic sibling jealously encroaching on shared space.” The sheer number of revolving narrators distinguishes “A Rose” from the rest of the collection, with De Voe exercising her creative muscles in this fairy tale gone awry. Closing out the collection is the shortest entry, the bravura “Virgin Flight 244, Chicago to Heathrow,” which, with great economy, manages to convey the horror of a wife giving birth to a demon child while seated in trans-Atlantic coach seats with her husband. As the new dad deals with the devil spawn and its hemorrhaging mother, De Voe’s disarming talents are on full display. Each story demonstrates De Voe’s gift for creating characters and scenarios that are just off the beaten path. Fans of The Twilight Zoneare certain to be mesmerized by this eerie anthology, filled with surreal wonder, sinister scenes, and a cast of eerily memorable characters.
Ominous, masterfully conceived psychological fiction.Pub Date: April 10, 2023
ISBN: 979-8987926901
Page Count: 253
Publisher: Borda Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Vintage King: a pleasure for his many fans and not a bad place to start if you’re new to him.
The master of supernatural disaster returns with four horror-laced novellas.
The protagonist of the title story, Holly Gibney, is by King’s own admission one of his most beloved characters, a “quirky walk-on” who quickly found herself at the center of some very unpleasant goings-on in End of Watch, Mr. Mercedes, and The Outsider. The insect-licious proceedings of the last are revisited, most yuckily, while some of King’s favorite conceits turn up: What happens if the dead are never really dead but instead show up generation after generation, occupying different bodies but most certainly exercising their same old mean-spirited voodoo? It won’t please TV journalists to know that the shape-shifting bad guys in that title story just happen to be on-the-ground reporters who turn up at very ugly disasters—and even cause them, albeit many decades apart. Think Jack Torrance in that photo at the end of The Shining, and you’ve got the general idea. “Only a coincidence, Holly thinks, but a chill shivers through her just the same,” King writes, “and once again she thinks of how there may be forces in this world moving people as they will, like men (and women) on a chessboard.” In the careful-what-you-wish-for department, Rat is one of those meta-referential things King enjoys: There are the usual hallucinatory doings, a destiny-altering rodent, and of course a writer protagonist who makes a deal with the devil for success that he thinks will outsmart the fates. No such luck, of course. Perhaps the most troubling story is the first, which may cause iPhone owners to rethink their purchases. King has gone a far piece from the killer clowns and vampires of old, with his monsters and monstrosities taking on far more quotidian forms—which makes them all the scarier.
Vintage King: a pleasure for his many fans and not a bad place to start if you’re new to him.Pub Date: April 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3797-7
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
It's almost enough to make a person believe in ghosts.
A disturbing household secret has far-reaching consequences in this dark, unusual ghost story.
Mallory Quinn, fresh out of rehab and recovering from a recent tragedy, has taken a job as a nanny for an affluent couple living in the upscale suburb of Spring Brook, New Jersey, when a series of strange events start to make her (and her employers) question her own sanity. Teddy, the precocious and shy 5-year-old boy she's charged with watching, seems to be haunted by a ghost who channels his body to draw pictures that are far too complex and well formed for such a young child. At first, these drawings are rather typical: rabbits, hot air balloons, trees. But then the illustrations take a dark turn, showcasing the details of a gruesome murder; the inclusion of the drawings, which start out as stick figures and grow increasingly more disturbing and sophisticated, brings the reader right into the story. With the help of an attractive young gardener and a psychic neighbor and using only the drawings as clues, Mallory must solve the mystery of the house's grizzly past before it's too late. Rekulak does a great job with character development: Mallory, who narrates in the first person, has an engaging voice; the Maxwells' slightly overbearing parenting style and passive-aggressive quips feel very familiar; and Teddy is so three-dimensional that he sometimes feels like a real child.
It's almost enough to make a person believe in ghosts.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-81934-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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