In this anthology of psychological horror, we encounter killers, madmen, and twisted families in this presentation of the many shades of human depravity.
My preferred subgenre of horror is psychological horror. Here there’s no ghosts or curses or demons – just the strange and terrifying excesses of human nature. The horror is enhanced by the fact that, bar the occasional tinge of the supernatural, everything that happened in this book could happen in real life.
All of the stories included in this book were originally published in other places, ranging from the 1960s to 2020s. However, the only one I’d read before is Joyce Carol Oates’s unsettling “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (which I highly recommend), so this was a fresh reading experience for me. I enjoyed so many of the included stories that it’s hard to pick a favorite!
A few I liked best were “A Sunny Disposition” by Josh Malerman, where a grandfather reveals an unsettling secret to his young grandson; “Back Seat” by Bracken MacLeod, in which a young homeless girl is confronted with a unexpected find while searching for spare change in an unlocked car; and “My Mother’s Ghosts” by Priya Sharma, in which a woman taking care of her ailing parents is unsure of she can trust her brother – or if he’s even her brother at all – when he returns to the home fold.
However, the stories that fell flat generally did so in spectacular fashion. Some stories were too abstract and left me scratching my head about what they were all about – I don’t mind reading between the lines, but when it becomes too hard to decipher you’re too confused to feel horrified. Others felt a bit cliche, retracing the same ground about serial killers and the like, without adding much new beyond the form.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.