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Book Review: Sweet Lamb of Heaven by Lydia Millet

Sweet Lamb of Heaven by Lydia Millet
W.W. Norton and Company, 2016
ISBN-13: 978-0393285543
Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, and Audible audio

When Anna discovers she’s pregnant, her husband Ned wants nothing to do with her pregnancy and insists she have an abortion: when she chooses not to do so, he becomes hostile and absent in their relationship, spending all his time at work. In the hospital, in the first moments alone with her new baby, Anna has the first of many unexplainable auditory hallucinations. Having dismissed ear infections, neurological issues, mental illness, and demon possession, she learns from the Internet that at least she is not alone: there are others who also hear voices. Rather than getting drawn in, Anna decides to keep a diary of what she hears, and keep the voices to herself. After years of being alone with the voices and her little girl, Lena, she leaves Ned, and goes off the grid so he can’t find her and take back their daughter, Lena. Now Ned is running for office, though. Ironically, he needs his family back to promote his pro-life, family values agenda… and he’ll do anything he needs to, to make that happen.

This sounds like a fairly straightforward narrative, but it’s really not: while I started out wanting to believe Anna, she is an extremely unreliable narrator, and becomes more and more so as the book continues. Even she starts to doubt her perceptions, and it’s hard to tell whether this is because Ned is gaslighting her, or because she harbors paranoid delusions. Did she ever actually leave home? How long is Ned’s reach? Are her friends during her escape real people, and if they are, are they even sane? Are the voices evidence of God, or the absence of God, or something else? The only thing we know for sure is that she has a deep love for her daughter that transcends anything else that happens. And some very terrifying things do happen. If we trust Anna’s perception of what Ned is capable of at all, he is not just a narcissist, but a genuinely frightening force able to tamper with the brain, and, through that, our sense of reality.

Readers looking for a straightforward, fast-paced narrative won’t find that here. However, those who enjoy the puzzle of a compelling psychological thriller with a plot complicated by an unreliable narrator, or fragmented reality, with a taste of an apocalyptic future, will find a lot to chew on here. Recommended.

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 


Posted on November 2, 2016 by , Reply

Book Review: Nightmares: A New Decade of Modern Horror, edited by Ellen Datlow

Nightmares: A New Decade of Modern Horror edited by Ellen Datlow
Tachyon Publications, 2016
ISBN-13: 978-1616962326
Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Nightmares is a collection of stories chosen by Ellen Datlow as the best stories of 2005-2015. It is a companion volume to Darkness, a previously published anthology of stories chosen by her as the best stories written between 1985 and 2005. Not being as widely read in contemporary short horror fiction as Datlow is, I can’t say whether I agree with her choices or not, but I can say that the stories she chose do live up to the book’s title: in one way or another, they are all nightmares.

Datlow chose stories that take a variety of approaches to instilling horror, from the understated to over-the-top: you’ll find weird fiction, cosmic horror, twisted fairy tales, disturbing family secrets, ghosts and hauntings, Gothic horrors, body horror, incestuous relationships, and more than enough blood and gore. As a reader who prefers creepy and atmospheric writing to graphic descriptions, I found this book to be emotionally, mentally, and even physically exhausting. I received it as an ebook from NetGalley and am not sure how long it actually was, but it required several days for me to read it through. However, as a sampler of well-done short fiction in the horror genre, I think it is successful. Certainly, I have found that several stories have stuck with me even though a few weeks have passed since I finished it.

Standout stories include “Shallaballah” by Mark Samuels, a surreal tale that takes a disoriented plastic surgery patient through a disturbing Punch-and-Judy inspired hospital experience; “Dead Sea Fruit” by Kaaron Warren, about a dentist with a taste for revenge who destroys a man whose kiss drives girls to starve themselves to death; “Closet Dreams” by Lisa Tuttle, the story of a girl who was trapped in a closet by her kidnapper;  “The Goosle” by Margo Lanagan, a horrific take on the Hansel and Gretel story requiring the reader to have an iron stomach; “The Shallows” by John Langan, a tale of a gardener trying to keep going after his wife has died, his son has left, and tentacled aliens have begun their invasion; and “Interstate Love Song (Murder Ballad No. 8)” by Caitlin Kiernan, a bloody tale of a road trip of serial murders by vicious, incestuous, necrophiliac sisters that you won’t soon forget.

For those horror readers who enjoy variety in their short fiction,  Nightmares is an excellent way to discover authors they may not have tried out before. With her choices for this collection of short fiction from the past decade, despite her disclaimer, Ellen Datlow continues to show not just her enthusiasm as a fan of the horror genre, but her excellence as an anthologist. Recommended.

Contains: graphic gore and torture, cannibalism, incest, necrophilia, violent murders, disturbing sexual situations, body horror, rape


Posted on October 31, 2016 by , 2 comments

Book Review: Troll Bridge

Troll Bridge by Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran

Dark Horse, 2016

ISBN-13: 9781506700083

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition

Troll Bridge, a graphic novel based on Gaiman’s short story from Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions, follows Jack from child to adulthood, and his reluctant relationship with a lone bridge troll. As a child, he is frightened by ghosts, ghouls, and witches, but this does not stop him from his curiosity about the world around him. He meets a lurking, hungry troll during one of his wanderings across the uninhabited lands of his hometown. He is able to fend off the beast by promising to bring him a heartier meal when he’s older. When he tries to deliver as a teenager, the troll refuses his offering off a teenage girl, indicating he would not eat an innocent. Jack, again, is able to convince the troll that he would come back with a something better for him to dine on later in his life, and again, the troll acquiesces. Jack’s adult life is a cycle of trouble, and culminates in his wife taking their child and leaving him after she tires of his poor decision making and harmful actions. Wandering in unfamiliar territory, he finds himself in front of the old archway of the troll bridge, and finds the troll after much searching. What happens upon his return to the troll is unexpected.

Doran’s rich art style lends a haunting quality to Gaiman’s short story. Every page is haunting. Just as Jack’s life changes, so does the landscape of his hometown and the relationships he develops and just as easily destroy. Even the bridge troll himself is significantly different as the story takes shape. Gaiman and Dorman’s efforts with Troll Bridge not only prove the short story is a significant piece of art, but also that the graphic novel format isn’t simply a picture book. It can be the perfect medium for a solid piece of literature. Highly recommended.

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Editor’s note: Other works of Gaiman’s that have been made into graphic novels include his short story “Harlequin Valentine” and his novels Neverwhere, The Graveyard Book, and Coraline.

Posted on October 29, 2016 by , Reply
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