June 10 - "Clothes Make the Man"

A Week of Richard Matheson“Clothes Make the Man”
by Richard Matheson
Button, Button: Uncanny Stories (2008)

* * (Okay) Supernatural

A drunken man corners a guest at a party and tells him the tragic tale of his brother’s losing battle with his wardrobe.

There were moments when the story rose above silliness. In fact, in those brief moments the tale had some real potential for terror. In the end it was the drunken rambling that put me out of the story. Every moment away from Charlie and his increasingly finicky wardrobe was excruciating. Even the quote unquote surprise reveal at the end was wasted because of its proximity to the toxic narrator. So much potential here, squandered.

June 9 - "Pattern for Survival"

A Week of Richard Matheson“Pattern for Survival”
by Richard Matheson
Button, Button: Uncanny Stories (2008)

* * * (Good) Fable

The manuscript for a new story by Richard Allen Shaggley moves from author’s hand to reader’s enjoyment along a connected chain of increasing appreciation.

I hate the feeling of not quite knowing the point of a story. Even after two reads – I did go back and reread the story – I’m still left scratching my head. Did the manuscript of the story actually exist, or were each of the characters in contact with the manuscript simply different aspects of Richard Allen Shaggley? Even the characters in his manuscript appear to be aspects of himself (Ras and his beautiful priestess of Shahglee - from his name, Richard Allen Shaggley). But in between the confused thoughts, I found myself enjoying the story – even if I had no clue what it all meant.

June 8 - "No Such Thing as a Vampire"

A Week of Richard Matheson“No Such Thing as a Vampire”
by Richard Matheson
Button, Button: Uncanny Stories (2008)

* * * * (Great) Supernatural

A mysterious attacker collects blood from Madame Gheria’s neck every night. Her husband finally calls on the younger Dr. Vares in an attempt to solve the problem once and for all.

Oh, such a delicious twist ending. It’s a rare beast of an ending that sneaks up and surprises me. While the ending does come as a bit of a surprise – it was not set up from the start of the story – it works well with the story, so can be forgiven its abruptness. In fact, the title of the story serves its purpose well. It challenges you to at first believe its veracity, and then question it, leaving you primed and ready for the perfect ending. A nice little tweaking of conventions.

June 7 - "Morality"

Sundays with Uncle Stevie“Morality”
by Stephen King
Esquire, July 2009

* * * * (Great) Realistic

A dying man presents Nora the opportunity to make $200,000 for committing an act of sin.

There is a great build up to the eventual act. King does a masterful job of surrounding the event in tension-building mystery. We know how the story should end – will end – and with a title of “Morality,” how else could it end? But it is like watching cars crash or accidents as we pass by, we’re fascinated by the destruction. This one act, designed to fulfill the dreams of a money-challenged couple, ends up driving the two apart. My only complaint is that Nora, while fully realized as a character, does not appear as original as King’s characters so often do.

[And I had to include the cover to this issue of Esquire promoting the story. Wow.]

June 6 - "Love Far from Home"

“Love Far from Home”
by Italo Calvino
Numbers in the Dark (1995)

* * * * * (Excellent) Realistic

A man travels from village to village searching for the place and girl of his dreams.

This is a story about the grass being greener on the other side. No matter where you are, someplace else – the next village over – seems different, better. You travel there and it’s everything you dreamed you were missing until it becomes familiar and the idea of a better village grows in your mind. The same can be said of women, jobs, and dreams in general.

I also made connections with how the narrator lives his life, ignoring the world around him:

“Then there were the grown-ups, whose job it was to deal with things, real things. All I had to do was discover new symbols, new meaning. I’ve stayed that way my whole life, I still live in a castle of meaning, not things, and I still depend on the others, the “grown-ups”, the ones who handle things.”

And focusing on the imaginary:

“When I see a machine I look at it as if it were a magic castle, I imagine tiny men turning amongst the cogs.”

And by far the coolest name for woman I’ve come across – Mariamirella.

June 5 - "Burning Ring of Fire"

“Burning Ring of Fire”
by Hana K. Lee
Hardcore Hardboiled (2008)

* * * * (Great) Noir

After a woman finds her lover, J, dead, drowned in the tub, she takes her revenge on the men responsible.

Revenge tales are fun. The good ones aren’t clean tales. They are brutal, vindictive beasts. But, they make good entertainment. Never learning much about the narrator, the story leaves the reader wishing for the next chapter in her life. Tough and determined, this is a woman with adventures still unwritten. Sometimes an unstoppable force of vengeance trailing devastation in her wake is just the thing for a Friday night.

June 4 - "The Holiday Man"

“The Holiday Man”
by Richard Matheson
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1994)

* * (Okay) Fantasy

David dreads going to work, especially on holidays, when the death toll is higher and feels somehow more wrong.

The story is supposed to be slightly mysterious and ominous, but ends up just being a bit too oblique. In an attempt to never explicitly state David’s job – some lie about a job in advertising – Matheson leaves the reader with too many questions. There’s also an overly long scene that begins the story that has little link to the purpose of the tale. What took a quarter of the story could have been done in a paragraph or two, leaving room for more detail about David’s mysterious job.

[This story was read June 4th but the Chair of Unexpected Sleep claimed yet another victim, and this review was posted a day late.]

June 3 - "Dynamite Hole"

“Dynamite Hole”
by Donald Ray Pollock
Knockemstiff (2008)

* * * (Good) Realistic

A man living wild in the country comes across the two Mackey siblings doing things siblings should not do, and cannot resist the urge to interrupt the young children. As he later recalls the events of the day, he also remembers the days after he left home in an attempt to dodge the WWII draft.

I’m interested in how all the stories in this collection are going to tie together in the end. Here we are given a glimpse at a possible mystery – the disappearance of the Mackey siblings – that may rear its head again in a later story. I’m not sure if this is the case, but I hope it will be.

The wild man living in the country never became more than a boiler plate character for me in this story. He was slow, brutal, and damaged, which – to be honest – is nothing original for this stock story character. I did enjoy the prose, though. Very colorful language, unique expressions and descriptions.

June 2 - "Like Riding a Moped"

“Like Riding a Moped”
by Jordan Harper
Sex, Thugs, and Rock & Roll (2009)

* * * * (Great) Crime

The narrator – a large woman – understands that Benny is using her simply to rob the jewelry store in which she works. The attention and hope he provides convince her to help, but she takes steps just in case.

Heist stories have always interested me. While this tale is not strictly focused on the heist, but rather more on the character of the narrator, it retains the feel – the building tension (will the robbery be a success?) – of a caper story. I think Harper does a great job putting us in the mind of a character with such image and esteem problems. We feel as though we can relate to her situation, her life. Those connections are what give the story its powerfully satisfying ending.

June 1 - "A Sleep Not Unlike Death"

“A Sleep Not Unlike Death”
by Sean Chercover
Hardcore Hardboiled (2008)

* * * * (Great) Noir

Gravedigger Peace is reminded of a time – a life – before his existence as a gravedigger. When that reminder shows up in his graveyard it awakens the killer inside he long believed dead.

Gravedigger Peace is a fascinating character. The back-story provided in this short tale does nothing but whet the appetite for further adventures with this character. (And as luck would have it, Gravedigger appears as a sidekick in Chercover’s novel, Big City, Bad Blood.) That’s the problem with some short stories: they are simply too short. The characters practically beg to be explored further, in more detail.

[This story was read June 1st, but the Chair of Unexpected Sleep claimed yet another victim, and this review was posted a day late.]