|
SurReview
SurReality
SurReviewers
SurRecommended
SurRemains
SurRecognition
Next Review: FleshPuppets.Com & Www.Frantana.Com Previous Reviews: Beavis & Butt-head Extravaganza
It is common for bands to cover each
other's songs. But we never see authors covering the works of other
authors. Why not? Who knows. Now we have a reason to wish that more
did, as thirteen modern horror writers gather to retell W.W. Jacobs'
classic chiller "The Monkey's Paw". The result is a virtual textbook
on modern horror style, atmosphere, and plot structure. The basic
story stays the same; but we get to see what each author adds to the
basic campfire story plot to make it stick to the ribs, so to
speak. The list of contributors is amazing; King, Barker, Gaiman,
Shepard, Brite, McCammon, Landsdale, Butler, and more.
For those who've never read "The Monkey's
Paw", it concerns a monkey's paw brough back from India that allegedly
has the power to grant three wishes -- but at a great price. A man
wishes for two-hundred pounds, and presto, someone delivers a
two-hundred pound check -- as compensation for his son's death in an
industrial accident. The man's wife makes him wish for his son back
alive, but when he hears horrific scratchings at his door, he
re-thinks the whole endeavor and wishes his son dead again. This brief
summary does not do the story justice; it is a chilling tale. Also
short, and it's core idea -- the interaction of fate and runaway human
desire to produce horror -- is not dependent on a specific
setting. This makes it a highly versatile foundation.
Some of the authors ran far afield with the
basic premise, as befits their ideosyncrasies. Shepard takes on an
hallucinogenic romp through an old colonial compound in Indonesia with
jaded expatriates; there is much more to be seen in his version than
the original, but even less to be known with certainty. King takes the
story back to the heart of all horror -- childhood, with a pair of
young brothers discovering the paw in the attic. They wish for new
bikes, and as expected, mother arrives with new bicycles, a bribe to
help them get over the news of their father's death. King's prose, as
usual in his short fiction, carries us smoothly along like a Maine
stream to the inevitable comclusion. And Barker replaces the
mother-father-son grouping with a homosexual love triangle, adding a
distincly modern touch by letting the plot revolve around AIDS.
The cumulative effect of reading
essentially the same story thirteen times was hypnotizing. In the
hands of lesser writers it would undoubtedly be tedious, but given the
excellent stories here I could relax and almost stop paying attension
to the plot alltogether, and simply enjoy the stylistic individuality
of each author.
The book was put together to benefit the
Horror Fiction Defense Fund, which was created to help in the Jaleel
Mickens case, but hopes to become a permanent watchdog group. Jaleel
Mickens is an English instructor at a Tollbert College, a small
private college in Alabama. He was fired for teaching 'inappropriate
and pornographic' materials in his course on horror literature --
materials that included many of the best horror books ever
written. The HFDF is helping him sue to get his job back. This book
represents the horror community's real attempt to show support on an
issue near and dear to the hearts of horror writers everywhere. I
couldn't imagine a better response; something that makes a unique
statement about the field both legally and artistically. I only hope
that this series will be continued, with other stories that could
provide an equally flexible footing-- "The Jar", "The Lottery",
something by Poe perhaps? I was left hungry for more.
|