THE STORY: “She By the Sea”
Tamika Thompson’s “She By the Sea” magnificently blends nightmarish images of the Black Lagoon’s Gill-Man, a dead basketball star, and an unhinged, unhoused woman in a stabbing on the Pacific Coast Highway. As the police make a dragnet for Colleen, the ocean and narrative tension rise to a bloody good finish. A standout among standouts in this brilliant dark carnival of a collection!
THE STORY: “Hell Screen”
In Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s “Hell Screen,” a sociopathic painter creates an all-too-real artwork for his psychopathic Lord. Takes Poe’s “The Oval Portrait,” Wilde’s DORIAN GRAY, and Lovecraft’s “Pickman’s Model” in diabolical new directions.
THE STORY: “The Summer People”
With deft and bitter genius, Shirley Jackson’s “The Summer People” teases layers of privilege from an unwitting wealthy couple. When the snobby Allisons stay at the lake house longer than expected, relations with the rural folk get ominous.
THE STORY: “The Black Cat”
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat” uses pet abuse and mariticide to explore PERVERSENESS, described as the “unfathomable longing of the soul TO VEX ITSELF,” or the inner drive to self-destruct. Unusual genital metaphors in this tale of domestic terror.