Aug 26 - Aug 31, 2011

The Ones That Got Away
Stephen Graham Jones
Horror Anthology
Published 2010
251 pages

10/10

  This excellent anthology of Jones' collected work ranges from humorous, to disgusting, to outright heartbreaking, all while maintaining a common theme of superb originality.

  In "Father, Son, Holy Rabbit", a father and son are lost in the woods during a snowstorm, and must do everything necessary to survive.
  What a great way to start the collection - I found it to be a perfect representation of Jones' style.  He turned a horrific, but everyday situation into a horror story, with a gut-wrenching revelation at the very last moment that was still ambiguous enough to make everything that was happening feel kind of dreamy and surreal.  I liked this one in particular because it was so eerie, and kind of beautiful, in a really disgusting way.  Really, REALLY disgusting.

  In "Till the Morning Comes", a young boy is terrorized by his Uncle's Grateful Dead posters.

 
  I'm just going to start this off by saying that Grateful Dead posters are not scary for me, per se.  In the light of day, anyways.  But my buddy has a huge Grateful Dead beach towel from my workplace tacked up on the wall, across from his bed.  If I had that creepin' on me during my sleepy time, I'd be having some pretty messed up dreams.  For a kid?  Wow.  I have to assume that all kids are already living in a constant state of trippin' balls (If you've ever watched a show for really little kids, you'll understand what I mean) so I'd think this kind of ornamentation would have to do a number on their impressionable little brains.  So I can emphasize.  I'd be scared too.
  But this one was almost TOO ambiguous for me; I had no idea where it was going.  I didn't actually know who the antagonist was.  I wasn't quite sure what elements I was supposed to be focusing on for horror expectations.
  What saved it and made it enjoyable for me was the superb writing skill.  The imagery was top notch, and everything came together and whalloped you at the end.

  In "The Sons of Billy Clay", a couple of prison guards discuss a very unique rodeo bull.
  I don't think I got this one.  I mean, I understand what happened physically, but I don't understand the how, or especially the why.  Definitely too ambiguous.  The characters were also hard to relate to because they were so mercurial - maybe they were supposed to be surprising, but in a short story, when a character has little time to develop and acts erratically, it hard not to see it as a continuity or convenience (as in deux ex machina") issue.   I just couldn't get a good handle on either of the guards , or the story itself.

  A couple of teenage girls go to extreme lengths to become "So Perfect".
  This was so macabrely (Is that a word?  Spell check doesn't think so, but Google does) hilarious to start out, and could have continued on in that vein and still been a good funny story; but instead it veered off into the realm of completely grotesque, and ended just disgustingly - which is just the way I like my literature.

  In "Lonegan's Luck", a traveling salesman offers his unique wares to some very eager towns.
  I've already read this before in another anthology, and normally I don't particularly enjoy reading things more than once, as I get too antsy to get to the end that I know is coming.  This was actually just as entertaining as the first time I read it, which was an unexpected and pleasant surprise.  In my opinion, that means it's better than just good.
  It seemed really complete and straightforward - it had all the necessary elements of information at the right moments, so it was easy to follow and get into.
  When I read in the notes that Jones would consider doing a Lonegan collection, I was totally stoked; I would snatch that shizz up in a heartbeat!  I love the character, and I LOVED this story.  Bring on the Lonegan book!

  Two youngins and an ex-police dog come face to face with REAL "Monsters" during the summer in a quaint vacation town.
  This was AWFUL.  Not awful bad though; I mean awful as in you felt awful reading it because it was so nice to begin with, and it just kept creeping and creeping up on you as you got closer and closer to the end, until it all got to be almost too much.  By the culmination, it had all happened so fast that it was almost overwhelming, because it was so sad and disturbing.  Any story that takes you from a pair of gradeschoolers walking the neighbor's friendly dog, to... well... all that horror that happened at the end... It'll definitely do a number on any reader's psyche.

  There's far worse things than just being shipwrecked when you find yourself on "Wolf Island". 
  I basically thought this story was over before it really even began.  "OK, lone werewolf on an Island.  Yawn."  Then it just went completely out of this realm to conclude with an ending that defies all author formula.  Totally bizarre elements with a strange plot to bring them all together.  Definite points for creativity.

  In "Teeth", a detective bites off more than he can chew (See what I did there?  Ha ha, aren't I the witty one) when he takes a case revolving around owl shit, severed fingers, and an amputee.
  Honestly, this was so surreal and cryptic that I just got kind of lost, and found myself reading words one after the other, as opposed to reading an actual story.  The final scene though, that was a doozy, and my experience with the work as a whole didn't take away from the ending, if that makes any sense at all.

  In "Raphael", a group of misfits take turns trying to give themselves the ultimate scare, and unexpectedly succeed with dire consequences.
  This has got to have been one of the EERIEST scenes in literary history.  I'd equate it to the first time I saw that dead kid climb out of the TV in "The Ring". 

  I won't ruin it for you, but if you've read this, and I wholeheartedly suggest that you do, you'll know exactly what scene I'm talking about.  Ugh.  Just thinking about it gives me the willies.  And not the good kind. 
  Really, the whole story is remarkable in it's entirety.  Good show.

  The "Captain's Lament" is a story as old as any in our society.
  This one was BADASS.  Again, as with the previous one, but even more so, I can't tell you SFA (that's Sweet Fuck All for all you uninformed types) about this without ruining the whole thing.  But I can tell you this: it was fantastically written, with a great protagonist, and a concept that BLEW MY FRICKIN' MIND, MAN.  Loved it!  It was so clear, so concise, and so utterly sad, especially in comparison to it's well known literary (and oral) counterpart.  Now I bet you're REALLY wondering...

  If you're lost in the woods, and come across "The Meat Tree", you might want to think twice before you decide to sample it's offerings.
  I love how this starts off with one premise, and then leads you somewhere completely different right under your nose. 
  It was a little obscure at the end, but it was cleared up for me, for the most part, once I put all the info from the story AND the notes together.

  "The Ones Who Got Away" aren't necessarily the luckiest.
  As soon as you started this, from the very first sentence, you KNEW something awful was coming.  It's just that you can't imagine how awful.  It's not even the supernatural kind of horror, it's just plain old, totally probable, every day horror.  Disturbing as fuck, I say.
  It helped that it was so refreshingly clear; it was simple to understand, and it was so much more visceral because you could get right into it.  Great idea, great story.

  In "Crawlspace", a man is slowly being tortured by his inner demons, his conscience, and maybe by something more dangerous.
  I really got into this last story.  The characters were very real, very believable, which is so huge when reading anything.  You want to be able to understand them, feel what they're feeling, so you can just get lost in what's happening.  This was just mesmerizing because the main character was so SO developed.
  The end got a little out there for me, and I may not quite have gotten all there was to be got, but Jones proved with this that he could just as easily write straight fiction (you know, the kind Oprah likes).  What I'm saying is, he's skilled enough not to have to rely on gore to get entertainment points.  But I'm ecstatic that he chose this genre.  Because the imagery that he puts out... Jesus.  It's dark as hell, and it's GOOD.

  To top it all off, Jones included notes on all of his stories.  I LOVE it when authors do this.  It ties everything together, usually answers all those questions you've got wiggling around after the story is finished, and you just get to get into their head space.  Neat-O.  I'm glad he did this, and the notes are totally worth extra brownie points.

  All in all, this was  great collection.
  While a little too generally ambiguous for my personal taste, I recognize great writing when I see it.  Jones gives me everything I want in a reading experience: original ideas, characters I can identify with, and therefore care about, disturbing imagery, and always a punch at the end to make sure the story is smashed into your brain and leaves an impression.   Seriously, this guy is the master of great endings.
  And when I finished the book, I had a legit case of the heebie-jeebies.
  Stephen Graham Jones?  Good work. 
  Although all your stories start on the wrong page number.
  Or is that just to mess with me?