Quirky, erotic, vaguely sinister explorations of mostly lonely outsiders who find their secret expectations fulfilled by...
British comedian’s debut collection of weird urban fantasies.
Set in contemporary London or in the English countryside, these dozen urban pieces from Dyson, a member of the comedy duo League of Gentlemen seen here on cable (Comedy Central), are reminiscent of the short fiction published in the American pulp magazines Weird Tales and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (and dramatized on TV in Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents). In “City Deep,” one of three stories included here that have been published previously, a miserable claustrophobe reluctantly takes the London Underground, only to discover that the train he’s riding is filled with denizens of a frightful world below his own. “Love in the Time of Molyneux” describes a shy, one-armed misanthrope who permits himself to be seduced by a sexy avenging angel; what the angel wants is to teach the misanthrope’s conceited, womanizing roommate that he’s not the Messiah. Similar revenge scenarios deliver supernatural justice on a fatuous magician in “We Who Walk Through Walls” and on a pompous art instructor in “A Slate Roof in the Rain.” Not all the twist endings are downbeat: another shy fellow, after stumbling on a fortunetelling ATM that dispenses advice to the lovelorn, works up the courage to confess his love to his girlfriend. Another social misfit visits an Asian bordello in “All in the Telling,” the gem that closes the collection, in order to enjoy an eerie congruence between sex and storytelling.
Quirky, erotic, vaguely sinister explorations of mostly lonely outsiders who find their secret expectations fulfilled by sudden, inexplicable events.Pub Date: April 30, 2001
ISBN: 0-7156-3015-6
Page Count: 232
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2001
As she seeks to repair bridges, Cat awakens anger and treachery in the hearts of those she once betrayed. Making amends,...
Before sobriety, Catherine "Cat" Coombs had it all: fun friends, an exciting job, and a love affair with alcohol. Until she blacked out one more time and woke up in a stranger’s bed.
By that time, “having it all” had already devolved into hiding the extent of her drinking from everyone she cared about, including herself. Luckily for Cat, the stranger turned out to be Jason Halliwell, a rather delicious television director marking three years, eight months, and 69 days of sobriety. Inspired by Jason—or rather, inspired by the prospect of a romantic relationship with this handsome hunk—Cat joins him at AA meetings and embarks on her own journey toward clarity. But sobriety won’t work until Cat commits to it for herself. Their relationship is tumultuous, as Cat falls off the wagon time and again. Along the way, Cat discovers that the cold man she grew up endlessly failing to please was not her real father, and with his death, her mother’s secret escapes. So she heads for Nantucket, where she meets her drunken dad and two half sisters—one boisterously welcoming and the other sulkily suspicious—and where she commits an unforgivable blunder. Years later, despairing of her persistent relapses, Jason has left Cat, taking their daughter with him. Finally, painfully, Cat gets clean. Green (Saving Grace, 2014, etc.) handles grim issues with a sure hand, balancing light romance with tense family drama. She unflinchingly documents Cat’s humiliations under the influence and then traces her commitment to sobriety. Simultaneously masking the motivations of those surrounding our heroine, Green sets up a surprising karmic lesson.
As she seeks to repair bridges, Cat awakens anger and treachery in the hearts of those she once betrayed. Making amends, like addiction, may endanger her future.Pub Date: June 23, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-04734-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
Twenty New England horror shorts by Stephen King (and a painfully lofty introduction by old pro John D. MacDonald). King, of course, is the 30-year-old zillionaire who poured the pig's blood on Carrie, woke the living dead in 'Salem's Lot, and gave a bad name to precognition in The Shining. The present collection rounds up his magazine pieces, mainly from Cavalier, and also offers nine stories not previously published. He is as effective in the horror vignette as in the novel. His big opening tale, "Jerusalem's Lot"—about a deserted village—is obviously his first shot at 'Salem's Lot and, in its dependence on a gigantic worm out of Poe and Lovecraft, it misses the novel's gorged frenzy of Vampireville. But most of the other tales go straight through you like rats' fangs. "Graveyard Shift" is about cleaning out a long unused factory basement that has a subbasement—a hideous colony of fat giant blind legless rats that are mutating into bats. It's a story you may wish you hadn't read. You'll enjoy the laundry mangle that becomes possessed and begins pressing people into bedsheets (don't think about that too much), a flu bug that destroys mankind and leaves only a beach blanket party of teenagers ("Night Surf"), and a beautiful lady vampire and her seven-year-old daughter abroad in a Maine blizzard ("One for the Road"). Bizarre dripperies, straight out of Tales from the Crypt comics. . . a leprous distillation.
Pub Date: Jan. 20, 1977
ISBN: 0385129912
Page Count: 367
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1977
BOOK TO SCREEN
Stephen King’s “Jerusalem’s Lot” to Be Epix Show
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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