Nathan Ballingrud’s Shirley Jackson Award winning debut collection is a shattering and luminous experience not to be missed by those who love to explore the darker parts of the human psyche. Monsters, real and imagined, external and internal, are the subject. They are us and we are them and Ballingrud’s intense focus makes these stories incredibly intense and irresistible. These are love … love stories. And also monster stories. Sometimes these are monsters in their traditional guises, sometimes they wear the faces of parents, lovers, or ourselves. The often working-class people in these stories are driven to extremes by love. Sometimes, they are ruined; sometimes redeemed. All are faced with the loneliest corners of themselves and strive to find an escape.
Nathan Ballingrud was born in Massachusetts but has spent most of his life in the South. He worked as a bartender in New Orleans and New York City and a cook on offshore oil rigs. His story “The Monsters of Heaven” won the inaugural Shirley Jackson Award. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with his daughter.
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Beautifully written short horror fiction. The things that go bump in the night often take a backseat to the humans in these stories- but since the author does a good job of making his characters real people, flaws and all, it works.
I will say that some of the stories end ambiguously, but you shouldn’t let that stop you from reading this- it’s that good. I personally enjoyed spending a few minutes thinking about what may have happened next before moving on to the next one.
Mysterious and strange short stories.
Totally jealous of this collection of quiet horror stories–even the stories that didn’t hit for me were superlative. The stories all have a particular type of ending, though, so if you don’t like the first story because of the (mysterious and strange) ending, then you’re probably not going to like the rest. “What happened after” is usually hidden inside the rest of the story somewhere, with the ending itself arranged to be as unfinished and disconcerting as possible. You can discover the ending, if you like–but you have to work at it, because that was never the point. So consider yourself warned.
I’m absolutely late to the Ballingrud party and after seeing the praise heaped on his last collection Wounds, I knew I needed to dive in and start my journey into his fiction.
I love to have a short story collection on the go almost all of the time, reading one story each night after finishing my longer reads and this one fit the bill perfectly. Even more intriguing was the announcement that HULU was adapting the collection into a series titled ‘Monsterland.’
What I liked: this collection ran the gamut of subject matter and I found some of them immediately pulled me in, while a few were a bit more of a slow burn. The two stand out stories for me were easily ‘The Crevasse’ co-written with Mr. Bailey and ‘North American Lake Monsters.’ In ‘The Crevasse’ we follow along on an expedition in Antarctica when something goes horrifically wrong. It is during these actions that one of the characters discovers that maybe there is more under the ice than we believe. Truly amazing. The title story was a unique look at the re-infiltration of a man into his family after being in prison. A discovery by his daughter causes some amazing ripples through the familiar unit. I loved every sentence in this.
What I didn’t like: For me personally, some of the stories didn’t have any sense of closure, or the ending just went off in such an odd tangent that I was left perplexed. The easiest example of this was in the story ‘S S.’ This was an ‘American History-X’ style look at a high school kid walking a thin line of morals versus acceptance. The ending was something so unpredictable and head shaking I was left confused. Some people make like how this plays out in the stories, but I felt a bit let down with a number of them.
Why you should buy it: Ballingrud writes at an elevated level that is still highly accessible. Where I struggle at times with Ligotti’s literary approach, Ballingrud took that and made it readable for every horror fan, which was great. It’s something not a lot of people want to discuss, but at times horror fans can be intimidated by some authors purely because they are worried they don’t want to feel dumb or don’t believe they are smart enough to ‘get it.’ No worries here – dive in and have fun. And of course – with so much variance there is definitely something for everyone.
I haven’t seen a confirmed release date for ‘Monsterland’ so you still have time to read this and discover the source material before it graces our screens. As for me, I’ll be jumping into ‘Wounds’ tonight.