Review: Four and Half stars: A disturbing yet captivating journey through madness
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 29, 2013
I've never been a hardcore fan of non-supernatural human on human horror. I can embrace material like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Silence of the Lambs because although those titles resolutely occupy a space in the madness of the recognizably mortal world, there's an outlandish, just-outside of reality quality to them in the form of their most notorious antagonists that allows for a fair amount of entertainment value. Its okay to be enthralled by the flesh carving brutality of  Leatherface or the savage wit and deadly expertise of Hannibal Lecter because there's practically no chance we'll ever actually encounter an individual operating on their specific level in our lifetime.But take the grandiose characteristics out of the picture and you have a type of horror that I don't much care for. Most human on human horror  comes with a message that, beneath the veneer of everyday civility, we are all closer our feral, violent state than we think we are. It's generally the sort of somber, depressing storytelling that leaves me feeling bad ,not entertained... and if  I want that experience, I don't need to read a book . I can just watch the nightly news.Forgive the dissertation..it serves a purpose. I wanted to put into context why I found Terry M.West's collection A Psycho's Medley so remarkable. The stories here are deeply disturbing at times and not for the faint of heart (A fact that West actually advises more timid readers of in the introduction). They all fall well within the genre of hardcore, non-supernatural  human on human horror.So why didn't this book put me off where so many others have? In a word, West.Terry West has a way of not only making even the most bizarre twists seem perfect for the story they appear in (  Every tale here has a twisted logic to it and all of them are gripping from the first paragraph), but his characters are painted as such vividly recognizable people- the sort of folks you probably call your neighbors - that it's hard not to follow these dark tales with interest. No matter what the subject matter- be it a guilty rendezvous in a motel room, a young man's first hunt or a grief stricken orphan finding both the love of his life and a dark inner fury at a carnival-  human beings have an instinctive desire to follow any story thread that involves someone not unlike ourselves who finds themselves in the midst of unusual circumstances. West taps into that instinct deftly, prompting the reader's desire to want to find out how the tale is going to end.The stories are so creative in their execution, they avoid the pitfall of being solemn slogs through repetitive sequences of torture and death. The plots found here are all highly imaginative, weaving their spell with such a fresh touch that I found myself enjoying the ride even as I was being horrified. One of the best examples of this is also a personal favorite of mine among the six stories collected here, "Morsel", which takes a fairly standard hotel room setting and veers off into unexpected directions with it. The same can also be said for the ghastly backwoods surprises of "Traiteur" and the exceptional "Hair and Blood Machine", which unfolds among a traveling carnival to wonderful effect.I think that's why these stories work so well. Despite being horrifying excursions into the terror of human psychosis, there's actually enough entertainment value to be found that I didn't feel depressed afterward. Scared? Absolutely. Shaken up? Definitely. Entertained? You better believe it. Yet, I didn't walk away feeling as if the world was an evil, hopeless place and life was futile. Throughout A Psycho's Medley, West reminds us that there are all kinds of monsters out there and he scares and disturbs us while he's doing it.  This material is anything but lightweight. But he never adopts the tone that life is one ongoing nightmare waiting to happen. While the material carries with it palpable gravitas and the vibe here is serious and terrifying, things never become overbearingly nihilistic. To establish that balance and successfully maintain it throughout the entire collection takes skill. Terry M. West is the man for the job. I highly recommend this one.A note about my star rating: I recently awarded a five star rating to West's other 2013 collection, What Price Gory? but, you may notice, only awarded four stars to A Psycho's Medley , despite clearly enjoying both books on essentially the same level. For whatever reason,  I found myself unable to post a rating of an extra half star using this system , so I want it on record that this was intended to be a four and a half star rating.  As I indicated above,  I tend to favor supernatural horror (which is the heart and soul of What Price Gory?) to hardcore human horror, but West delivers so well on the promise of this concept that the rating is warranted.That being written,  in the interest of objectivity I did have one minor issue with the titular tale of this collection: In " A Psycho's Medley", the main character of that piece- which is presented in the form of a convicted serial killer's journal- inserts his own bizarre poetry throughout the story, in between the entries. I found that distracting . Every time the poetry appeared, I felt it  interrupted the flow  of the narrative and took me out of what was otherwise a fantastic and absorbing look into the mind of a psychopath (although, in what I consider to be a very clever touch, the killer himself admits to the reader that the poetry may not be very good). Beyond that, I have nothing but praise for this collection.