Review: Some intriguing brushstrokes, but no painting
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 01 18, 2014
I think the author is trying for a minimalist horror short story in the style ofStanley Ellin. He's taken a clichéd horror plot, young couple buys Victorian house cheap, and stripped it down to its essential elements. There is virtually no description of places or characters, and virtually no backstory of either. There are no extraneous events and the essential ones (odd noises and smells, reason to go into the creepy basement in the dark and so on) are done once, and without elaboration.What remains is done quite well. I could see taking this to a movie director as an impressionistic summary of a movie idea, leading to a brainstorming session, and a script.Why doesn't it work as a short story? The main one is that it's not truly minimalist. The reason the reader understands the story with so much left out is that he's read it or seen it on screen many, many times before. Thus instead of filling in the blanks with genuine feelings, the reader supplies dredged-up memories of mostly bad similar stories. If the author could tell this good a story as concisely without picking an overused plot, then I'd be trotting out the comparisons to Edgar Allan Poe and Stanley Ellin. But both of those authors accomplished their magic with dramatically original plots, ones that other people imitate, not imitations.A secondary problem is when you strip away everything but essential plot, what's left has to be done exceptionally well. While a lot of things are done well, the dialog between the main characters is stilted and unnatural--it both carries too much plot, and doesn't say enough about who these people are and why they're doing what they're doing. The author can do dialog, he is much more comfortable with the emergency response personnel.There is a lot of talent in this story, and I appreciate that this author has avoided the usual temptation to overwrite. I imagine it took great effort to distill the story down so much. I would read his next story with interest, but I cannot recommend this one.