★★★★★ Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories, by Gennarose Nethercott
Scary good scary stories
Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories
Gennarose Nethercott
Scary good scary stories
I first became aware of GennaRose Nethercott through her debut novel Thistlefoot, which was just SO good! So of course when I heard about this book of stories, I got my hands on it as soon as I could. It does not disappoint. The first thing that struck me about her writing was the vividness of her prose. Hers are words to light bonfires by, words to set off rockets, words to move undead spirits to dance.
I don't know quite what to call these stories. They are eerie, but I can't call them horror stories or ghost stories. There are, in fact, some ghosts in Fifty Beasts, but only a few, and they are by and large more benign than scary. In The Fuller Memorandum Charles Stross describes how I feel about most horror fiction
It’s the sort of tactic that might stand a chance of working if I was a little less cynical, or if they had enough imagination to make it, oh, you know, horrifying, or something. Luckily for me they don’t seem to have grasped the difference between a Sam Raimi movie and standing by your dad’s hospital bed trying to work up the nerve to switch off the ventilator.
Nethercott DOES have the imagination. And she demands that you do, too.
From what I've written so far, you are probably getting the impression that Nethercott's writing is flagrantly over-the-top. It is not. In fact, she has at times an extraordinarily economical story-telling style, reminiscent of those "Tell a story in a sentence" exercises. Often the story just sneaks up on you. My two favorite stories are "A Diviner's Abecedarian" and the book's title story, "Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart". Each of these stories purports to be a reference work, the first an alphabetical list of divination methods, the second an illustrated reference to a collection of fabulous beasts. It is not at all obvious when you begin one of these that the story actually has a story. It just seems to be a list. But as you move along you encounter just a sentence or two in each reference entry that connect up. By the end, the story has slipped into you, like a knife between the ribs.
I don't want to give the wrong impression. Fifty Beasts is not for everyone. I think it's spectacular and Nethercott a unique talent. But it's demanding. You have to have what it demands inside you and be willing to work at it.
I always read the Acknowledgements. One near-universal feature of Acknowledgements is the affecting thanks to the writer's spouse. Even in this, Nethercott is distinctive.
AS ALWAYS, MY FIRST gratitude goes to my parents, Michael and Helen, and my brother Rustin. I love you— thank you for loving me back. It’s really as simple as that, isn’t it?
...
Last, let’s give it up for my exes. If you think it’s about you, it probably is. ; )
Although many of the stories deal with romantic relationships, readers will notice a pronounced dearth of Happily-Ever-Afters. Hmm...
I thank NetGalley and Vintage Anchor for an advance reader copy of Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories. This review expresses my honest opinions.
Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories on Amazon