Review: Short story love! Three outstanding collections

Short story love! I've been on a short story binge and I've recently read three outstanding short story collections by Brian Stableford, Peter S. Beagle, and Chavisa Woods. One of these collections may well be my *2017 Best Book of the Year (although there's half a year of reading to go and I am reading some influential non-fiction, too) — I would love for it to be a story collection.

Stableford and Beagle are prolific writers with huge oeuvres, but I hadn't been exposed to either writer's work (other than Beagle's The Last Unicorn). After reading Stableford's story, "The Elixir of Youth," in Lightspeed Magazine, and being introduced to his contes cruels (cruel tales), I knew I needed more. I picked up Beagle's book because I was looking for some werewolf stories. Both books contained uniformly engaging stories. I didn't find myself skipping stories.

Chavisa Woods is a newer writer on the scene by comparison. Her debut collection of short stories, Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind (2009), was a Lambda Literary Award Finalist for Debut Fiction. Woods did a brilliant bit of marketing by writing this piece, 10 Books for Country Goths, for Electric Lit. It's a great list and after reading it I put Woods' book on my to-read list. I'm happy to have a book published in the current year in the running for my Book of the Year (not always the case).

Sheena And Other Gothic Tales (2006) by Brian Stableford

"'Gothic' fiction is calculatedly, arrogantly and ingeniously perverse. It is far more interested in the aesthetics of the sublime than the aesthetics of beauty, because its principal function is to disturb and horrify rather than flatter and comfort." — Brian Stableford

Sheena is a consistently satisfying collection of stories with old world feeling disturbing horror (in modern settings). "Heartbreaker" is a perfectly named standout and the title story "Sheena" makes for a satisfying conclusion to the whole.

Recommended for: goths, vampires, lovers of gothic literature and the anxious, the innocent and the doomed

Quotable:

"Come on, Doc—this is your life’s work, for heaven’s sake. Insect Utopia." — "Tenebrio"

"Sometimes, he figured, it was better to travel hopefully than to arrive, even when the only place you had to go was the end of a sentence." — "Innocent Blood"

"All lifestyle is fantasy, and there’s no virtue in buying a mass-produced one off the peg in Gap if you have the wherewithal to design and make your own." — "Sheena"

 Lila The Werewolf and Other Tales by Peter Beagle (2015) 

"Full of the kind of love that turns everything it touches into art." — Catherynne M. Valente

Outstanding in its entirely; and there's a lovely introduction to the collection by Catherynne M. Valente. I was excited to read this story filled with fantasy: a werewolf, a tiny woven unicorn, and death personified, but surprised to find that my absolute favorite story did not have a touch of magic in it — except for a father's love for his daughter, magic indeed.

"My Daughter's Name is Sarah" is a standout story. Other notable stories are: "Come Lady Death," "Lila the Werewolf," and "Julie's Unicorn".

Recommended for: lovers of well-told fantasy stories and good literature

Quotable:

"When I see her it is a little hard to breathe for a moment, and I will want to go down and meet her and walk the rest of the way with her."  —My Daughter's Name is Sarah 

"Many things that shrink from sunlight gain power in fog and murk." — "Underbridge"

Things to Do When You're Goth in the Country (2017) by Chavisa Woods

Bravo! This is an outstanding collection and has some standout stories. I read "Things to Do When You're Goth in the Country" first and it captured the flavor of the collection. However, the next story I read "The New Mohawk," about a man who has the Gaza Strip in his mohawk, got my attention. It's weird, wonderful and profound.

I'd give awards to the story "Revelations," a haunting story with a beautiful scene describing the sexual longings of a 73-year-old widow and a perfectly tense scene where you feel the pluck of every line of dialogue.

Each story is insightful with a strong voice and terse and humorous tone. Not all of the stories are tight in terms of plot and payoff — the literary description fits — but Woods is also unafraid of the fantastic.

Pairs well with: Aimee Bender, Rikki Ducornet and Amy Hempel

Recommended for: country goths, people who were misunderstood in their youth, lovers of lit

Quotable:

"Most of the tombstones looked like they wanted to let everyone finally forget and move on." — "Zombie" 

"The walls were full of the dead and we were drunk children shrieking at them." — "Zombie" 

Why adults ruin children's dreams: "...only the most ignoble and ugly things are attainable. For this reason, disappointment with one's life becomes a much more believable outcome. And, as Americans hate failure, this actually becomes the grudging goal of how one's life should be lived—passing the time with hated tasks, thankful and even possessive of the most basic aspects of survival: family, roof, clothing, food." — "What's Happening on the News?"

*My Book of the Year "award" criteria:

• I read the book in the past year.
• It stuck with me.
• I took the time to review it on my blog.