North American Lake Monsters – A Skilful Mix of Supernatural and Sad Mundanity

“She’s like a thousand different people right now, all waiting to be, and every time she makes a choice, one of those people goes away forever. Until finally you run out of choices and you are whoever you are.”

Nathan Ballingrud’s North American Lake Monsters is a collection of weird and powerful short stories the author has written between 2004 and 2013. One of my favorite and prestigious ‘New Weird’ author, Jeff VanderMeer has heaped praises upon Ballingrud. Moreover, this debut collection of short dark fiction has won the Shirley Jackson Award. Nathan Ballingrud’s The Visible Filth, yet another acclaimed short-fiction, has already been turned into a movie, directed by British-Iranian film-maker Babak Anvari (‘Under the Shadow’). All such interesting tidbits and my predilection for dark fiction drove me towards reading these nine short-stories that explores irreparable human tragedies, laced with ambiguous supernatural elements.

Nathan Ballingrud’s stories have already gained a pivotal status among contemporary weird horror fiction, alongside the works of Victor LaValle, Helen Oyeyemi, Laird Barron, Caitlin Kiernan, and John Avidje Lindqvist. All of Ballingrud’s short fiction in North American Lake Monsters uses supernatural presence or events as a catalyst to examine the mundane lives of ‘broken’ people and their surroundings (most of the tales are set in contemporary American South). While the inscrutable supernatural elements are kept in the background, its intrusion seems to escalate the trauma of individuals in interminable ways. Ballingrud approaches this trauma in a very raw and painful manner that those expecting an escapist horror fiction would be dismayed. Monsters and fantastical beings do exist literally in Ballingrud’s universe, but the aloofness, apathy, fury, and selfishness of humans withholds greater power to terrorize us.

In the first short-story, ‘You Go Where It Takes You’, a waitressing single-mother named Toni meets a charming stranger at the diner. She takes him home and he shows to her boxes full of human skins, which the guy says he stole from a mysterious figure. In the next one titled ‘Wild Acre’, a near-bankrupt construction worker momentarily watches his co-workers getting devoured by a Werewolf-like creature. In my most favorite story in the collection, ‘The Monsters of Heaven’ (which won the inaugural Shirley Jackson Award for ‘Best Short Fiction’ in 2008), an estranged couple who has lost their 4-year-old boy nurtures a dying ‘angel’. The arrival of these ugly, baby-like ‘angels’ are viewed as a global phenomenon, but the primary focus lies on how this particular traumatized family react to it. In my second favorite story, ‘The Good Husband’, the husband of a woman, who has attempted suicide several times, leaves her this time to succeed. But the ‘dead’ wife wakes up next day, wondering what she ought to do now. 

The titular story isn’t about a Loch Ness monster-like creature which collides with boats. It’s simply about a guy, who has just come out of prison, vacationing together with his wife and teenage daughter at the lake. The daughter finds a dead lake monster washed up on the shore. The marital problems are foregrounded as the guy’s intense feelings of revulsion towards the creature bring out more of his worst qualities. A deadly deal with a vampire is the focus of ‘Sunbleached’, whereas the discovery of a stairwell going deep into earth (clearly not the work of humans) in the middle of Antartica is the subject of Love-craftian tale, ‘The Crevasse’. ‘S.S.’ and ‘The Wayward Station’ are the timeliest stories in the collection, the former examining the life of a poor teenager who turns out at a white supremacist meeting (on his girl-friend’s insistence), and the later revolves around a homeless man, haunted by the life he had in pre-Katrina New Orleans (also, these two stories has lesser fantastical components).

Nathan Ballingrud’s tales might disappoint readers who are expecting Stephen King or Cliver Barker-style horror fiction. By and large, the author uses the horror element as a tool to realize a challenging and grounded literary expression. The supernatural tropes in these stories are clearly metaphorical. It helps to reveal a character, and in the process the genre tropes also gets reinvigorated. Ballingrud proves that werewolves or vampires or monsters could be used to great effect, provided one rightly discerns and applies it as a metaphor. Failed masculinity or emasculation is a recurrent theme in the collection. The tension in ‘Wild Acre’ or ‘The Monsters of Heaven’ largely arises from interrogating the men’s insecurity and their strict tribalistic feelings. Other recurrent themes include broken families and haunted memories. Furthermore, the emphasis on region and setting (American South) brings lot of energy and raw power to the stories’ themes.

Nathan Ballingrud

Like any other short-story collections, North American Lake Monsters has few shortcomings. But Nathan Ballingrud must be commended for allowing his imagination as well as his attention to realism to break the boundaries laid out for writers of horror. As I mentioned earlier, the author applies horror not as a genre, but as a mode of expression. Accordingly, these tales keeps us in a state of obfuscation, denying any easy emotional catharsis. And unlike many horror fictions, Ballingrud allows great space for personal interpretation. What these stories imply may remain particular to each individual. We aren’t mere spectators in this literary world, but participants gazing at the unknowable. Overall, North American Lake Monsters is a diverse, poetic yet devastating assemblage of short fiction that looks into the darkest corners of human psyche.

 

Something Wicked This Way Comes – An Elegant and Dazzling Dark Fantasy

“For being good is a fearful occupation; men strain at it & sometimes break in two.”

Ray Bradbury is one of the most prolific and renowned fantasy fiction writer, who was best known for his dystopian narrative in Fahrenheit 451 (published in 1953). Mr. Bradbury never attended college, but his shining prose and depthful metaphors kept readers under a spell. Although he was known as a science-fiction writer, Bradbury’s works often defy easy classification (and he rejected ‘sci-fi author’ tag). The lyrical power of his writing and distinct weirdness of his stories’ setting could very well be termed ‘Bradburian’. While Bradbury’s tales set in Mars and dystopian future gained immense attention, he was as great in chronicling the enchantment of childhood and possibilities youth withholds. The author’s 1957 novel Dandelion Wine and 1963 dark fantasy Something Wicked This Way Comes brilliantly broached such themes – both set in fictional Green Town, Illinois in the tail-end of 1920s – and featured strongly influential nostalgic elements.

The young heroes of Something Wicked This Way Comes are 13-year-old Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, best friends/neighbors just born two minutes apart -- one a minute before the midnight stroke on Halloween, and one a minute after on All Saint's Day. Will is cautious and amiable; Jim is daring and boasts a fascination for the dark. Nevertheless, the pair is totally inseparable and remains unaware of the capricious nature of the outside world. The strength of their friendship is tested when a surprise carnival (‘Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show’) rolls into their small Midwestern town in October last week amidst warnings of thunderstorm. Jim and Will watch the carnival arriving on a glorious, old train with no one at the controls and no passengers in the cars.

The carnival’s main attraction is touted to be temptation. Jim and Will soon discover what it tempts and rewards: to offer people their darkest, unobtainable desires in exchange for their souls. After stumbling into the dark heart of the carnival, the boys are on the run, evading the strange group of freaks led by Mr. Dark. He is also known as ‘The Illustrated Man’, the sprawling collection of tattoos on his body has the power to control and seduce people. Unlike Jim, Will wants to resist the temptation and believes by exactly doing that he can save the town. But before going down that path, Will must redeem the relationship with his father Charles Halloway, a 54-year-old library janitor, from whom he had often felt alienated. Hence this tale isn’t just about winning over soul-swallowing carnival, but also about understanding how grown-ups are sometimes just as lost as kids and teens. The primary horror Will discovers is how his father is weak with fear and regrets. To dispel the bizarre evil, the bonds of friendship and fatherhood must be revitalized.

Jonathan Pryce plays Mr. Dark in the 1983 Disney Studios adaptation

The story might seem time-worn, repeatedly rehashed in novels and movies. But Bradbury’s novel still stays special and unique because of his bewitching writing style. The prose is perfectly balanced between nostalgic and sombre quality. He can kindle thoughts, raise our hair or make us chuckle with few fascinatingly interwoven passages. The author’s sense of evoking detailed imagery about the Midwestern small-town life (in the 1920s) is absolutely captivating; a time when carnivals still held a sense of wonder and obscurity. The mood and themes of the novel was taken to new, refreshing heights by authors like Stephen King. However, the rhythmic lyricism and romanticism found in Bradbury’s prose could never be reproduced.

The profundity of the novel lies in the manner it resonates human condition and its myriad fears about growing-up, loneliness, and death. The intensely personal conversation between Will and his father reflects the book’s robust emotional core that’s far removed from the superfluous light vs dark episodes. Bradbury also pays tribute to books, the library, and the joys of getting lost in the fictional worlds (“…..what a fine place the library was, the many rooms, the books. With luck, no one found you. How could they!--when you were off to Tanganyika in '98, Cairo in 1812, Florence in 1492!?....”). Something Wicked This Way Comes is often recommended as perfect autumn or October read. It may not be as spooky or psychologically dense as King or (Shirley) Jackson, but it does contain few terrifying imagery: for example, the description of mirror maze or the face-off between Mr. Dark and Charles Halloway at the library. Altogether, this heartwarming fireside tale of good vs evil shines with incredibly descriptive and enriching writing style and has stood the test of time. 

 

The Thirteenth Tale – A Well-Written but an Emotionally Unsatisfying Gothic Mystery

There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.

British author Diane Setterfield’s debut novel The Thirteenth Tale (published September 2006) has an interesting set-up that would appeal to the book-lovers. Margaret Lea, a woman so besotted with reading that she makes sure she is sitting down, or else would fall over and hurt herself while plunging deep into the story. Margaret works in her father’s humble bookshop near Cambridge. She spends time at the store, meticulously arranging the books, studying worn-out long forgotten volumes, do research in order to write biographies on obscure literary and historical figures, and attends to small number of visitors. When Margaret is not working, she retreats back to her abode above the bookshop, and gets engulfed in the world of words, lighting her reading space with circle of candles. Just when we start to wonder how one could sustain a life-style with such an economically inadequate arrangement, Margaret tells us about her father’s antiquarian book-dealer job. As she says, the bookshop is her father’s slightly expensive indulgence.

These opening passages mesmerizingly guides us deep into the world of a book-lover, her ruminations on the joy of reading, inhaling the smell of old books, her preference of books over people, all such ingrained thought-process a solitude-loving bibliophile could easily relate to. Diane Setterfield perfectly uses this hook to establish her Gothic suspense narration. Despite living the life of a hermit, an outsider reaches Margaret in the form of a letter. The letter is from Miss Vida Winters, a celebrated author whose novels have bewitched readers across the world for decades. Unfortunately, Margaret hasn’t read one of her novels. How could she be a book-lover and not read the book of a renowned contemporary author? Margaret has an answer for that too: she only reads the works of 19^th century works (“There are too many books in the world to read in a single lifetime; you have to draw the line somewhere”). Nevertheless, Winters’ prose in the letter enamors Margaret so much that she hunts through her father’s treasured collection and starts reading Winters’ debut work; a collection of short stories titled ‘The Thirteen Tales’.

Miss Vida Winters’ personal life and past have always been a mystery to the reporters and her fans. Twenty two biographers have tried to tell the story of Winters’ life but totally failed. Moreover, being a storyteller, Miss Winters herself spins different stories about her past and feeds it to journalists (in one she is aristocrat, in another a poor orphan, and so on). But now in her 70s, Winters has asked Margaret Lea to pen the veritable biography. While Margaret instantly falls in love with the way Miss Winters conjures words like a sorcerer, she wonders why would the famous writer chose her – the obscure biography author – to tell the truth. Nevertheless, Margaret decides to travel and meet-up with Winters as mentioned in the letter. Even before meeting the great writer, Margaret discovers an oddity about her first book.

 Veteran British actress Vanessa Redgrave played Miss Vida Winters and Olivia Colman played Margaret Lea in the TV movie based on the novel

Though titled as ‘Thirteen Tales’, there’s only 12 stories in the book. In the latter, well-publicized editions, the title has been changed to ‘Tales of Change and Desperation’. The stories were profound retelling of classic fairy tales, which Margaret terms it as ‘'brutal, sharp and heartbreaking’. Connoisseurs of Miss Winters’ stories have long speculated that the missing thirteenth tale may contain clue to the writer’s cryptic past. Subsequently, Margaret arrives at the designated Gothic mansion and immerses herself into the mystery of who Vida Winter is. She is irresistibly drawn to the Angelfield house at Yorkshire, home to generations of patricians and where Miss Winter supposedly grown-up with her identical twin sister. And as the tale unfolds, constantly interspersed with Margaret’s thoughts, the Angelfield house’ nasty, chilling secrets slowly comes to light. Furthermore, Margaret’s troubled life and her own family secret she bears like a scar, persistently haunts her.

Diana Setterfield tries to incorporate Victorian themes of sibling relationships, liberation, and identity. The story of Miss Winters contains clear parallels to the classic gothic novels: Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Turn of the Screw, etc. Sudden twists, intriguing mystery, hint of perverse behavior, rambunctious children, and emotionally-broken adults, the novel has all the atmosphere and elements to deftly unravel the threads and provide the answers. Yet something feels amiss in the story-telling; something which keeps us at a distance, rendering the developments in the middle portions either uninteresting or tedious. Although Setterfield teases us with the spectacle of haunting, there’s no eerie, uncomfortable feeling. The initially fascinating premise becomes repetitive in certain areas (especially when it comes to explaining the twin sibling relationship and Margaret’s deep sense of loss).

Setterfield bestows information from different points and even includes a damaged diary towards the end to closely scrutinize Miss Winters’ truth. But for all the information carefully spread throughout the book, the ending seems a bit rushed and the twist remains very thin (irrespective of its credibility). It’s a smart decision to keep us guessing the time period Miss Winters’ tale is set, but Setterfield’s writing somewhat lacks the real Victorian or Edwardian feel, which was elegantly brought out by contemporary writers like Sarah Waters and A.S. Byatt. Nevertheless, the author’s lively prose kept me engrossed, even when I was emotionally detached from the characters. There are quite a few quote-worthy excerpts, championing the pleasure of reading and the power of story-telling. Altogether, The Thirteenth Tale has an interesting premise and it is beautifully written, whilst I wasn’t thoroughly swept up by the gothic atmosphere and dubious character sketches.