![]() ![]() She brings the reader not only what is horrifying, but displays her ability to render even the most sacrosanct relationships horrible ("Mother"), and relationships are at the core of all her stories. But after a little detour, she lands "Silence", a simple, immediate narrative of a single terminal moment that will not leave the reader any time soon - and that's what you want from a horror collection. ![]() "Sharp-Bladed Tongue" is not as sharp, in comparison. ![]() Some of the tales are well-crafted, but lack the retort of the strongest. She examines her subject in 3D, in extreme close-up, in one of the most eerie pages of text we have engaged in a very long time. Authors endeavor to keep the mind's eye on a subject as if it were a camera, to make language visual for the reader. Her descriptive ability in the first offering, "The Reunion", stuns. She stitches these sparse explorations of the horrible together like a snatch of tatted lace. There are no nuances or soft edges, just a kind of precision that threads her stories through the sliver of a needle's eye. Michelle Merz has a way of rendering a story in such a way that it seems like a hi-def photograph. "Dark" is a short collection of trimmed tales of disturbing and horrific moments of realization. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |