Windeye

March 19, 2012
Both smartly referential and admirably distinct in voice, this collection of literary horror stories is also plagued by unevenness. The shades of Poe, Lovecraft, and the brothers Grimm are palpable, inflecting stories like “Dapplegrim,” about a boy and the supernaturally powerful horse he inherits, or “Tapadera,” a gruesomely literal “Tell-Tale Heart.” Chilling imagery—from the mysterious, possibly malevolent house in the title story to the pagan cave world of “Grottor”—bores under the skin and stays there. These are stories of madness told from the inside, and they often read like dreams; logic and time dissolve as the world distorts and narrows. The collection’s distracting inconsistency is forgivable, maybe even preferable, when it brings shifts in tone, from gothic to Hitchcockian, or fairy-tale to ghost story. But there are too often bewildering leaps and too many stories of lesser quality, such as the baffling “Bon Scott: The Choir Years,” in which a music journalist discovers the AC/DC singer’s Mormon leanings. Agent: Matt McGowan, Frances Goldin Literary Agency.

June 15, 2012
Twenty-five slices of the grotesque, the macabre and beyond from a gifted literary novelist with an eye for all things horrible. Evenson's latest (Immobility, 2012, etc.) is a great introduction to his unique mindset, but it's not for the faint of heart. The title story is a good example, a short portrait of a boy who loves, above all things, his sister, who is, one day, inexplicably gone, unremembered by everyone except the boy. Other works seem to echo the anxiety of Edgar Allen Poe, as in the confessional "Angel of Death," whose narrator confesses, "Questions have begun to plague me. About where I am, what I am doing here, where are we going. As I have not even the faintest most tentative of answers to them, I find I have no idea how to entertain them." A pair of stories offer metaphysical takes on the physical presence of "The Absent Eye" and "The Other Ear." There are a couple of great procedurals as well, "The Moldau Case" and "The Sladen Suit," that lend a sense of humor to their ever-so-serious proceedings. And there is no funnier story here than "Bon Scott: The Choir Years," in which an enterprising rock journalist discovers secret information outing the late lead singer of AC/DC as a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. A unique collection, proving that Evenson is as deft at moving between genres as a ghost passing through a wall.

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May 1, 2012
Evenson's short fiction has received many awards, and the title story of this collection was an O. Henry Award winner. His style, described as literary horror, varies with the nature of the story and is sometimes straightforward, especially in very short stories, but more often ornate, almost archaic in tone. All the stories in this collection are hard-edged, tinged with emotional or physical violence and capped by shock or outright horror. Characterized by building suspense and dread, these tales often have a folkloric feel far removed from the commonplace. Recurrent themes include disappearance, murder, and paranoia based on more than a pinch of reality. In the title story, a boy watches his sister disappear only to be told he never had a sisteran event that shadows his subsequent life. Dapplegrim tells the story of the youngest boy of a family with 12 children, who, leaving home to find his fortune, finds instead the misfortune of a life controlled by the whims of a murderous horse. While this collection will appeal to short-fiction readers, the real audience for these stories is horror fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)