“Stretch[es] the boundaries of the genre…It’s horrifying, but there’s beauty.” –The New York Times “One of the field’s most accomplished short story writers.” –The Washington Post A gripping collection of six stories of terror–including the novella “The Visible Filth,” the basis for the upcoming major motion picture–by Shirley Jackson Award-winning author Nathan Ballingrud, hailed as a … Award-winning author Nathan Ballingrud, hailed as a major new voice by Jeff VanderMeer, Paul Tremblay, and Carmen Maria Machado–“one of the most heavyweight horror authors out there” (The Verge).
In his first collection, North American Lake Monsters, Nathan Ballingrud carved out a distinctly singular place in American fiction with his “piercing and merciless” (Toronto Globe and Mail) portrayals of the monsters that haunt our lives–both real and imagined: “What Nathan Ballingrud does in North American Lake Monsters is to reinvigorate the horror tradition” (Los Angeles Review of Books).
Now, in Wounds, Ballingrud follows up with an even more confounding, strange, and utterly entrancing collection of six stories, including one new novella. From the eerie dread descending upon a New Orleans dive bartender after a cell phone is left behind in a rollicking bar fight in “The Visible Filth” to the search for the map of hell in “The Butcher’s Table,” Ballingrud’s beautifully crafted stories are riveting in their quietly terrifying depictions of the murky line between the known and the unknown.
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This review was originally published at High Fever Books: https://www.highfeverbooks.com/reviews/wounds-six-stories-from-the-border-of-hell-by-nathan-ballingrud
Nathan Ballingrud makes for one hell of a tour guide along the border separating life on Earth from eternal damnation. His collection, Wounds, brings together six stories all about the permeation between these two realms.
“The Atlas of Hell” kicks things off in remarkably strong fashion. Ballingrud delivers a work of Bayou noir that sees a rare book dealer pressed into service by his mob associates into recovering the atlas of Hell. There’s loads of terrific imagery here, and I flat-out loved the concept of Ballingrud’s “astronauts” from Hell. The atlas itself was totally unlike anything I had expected, and the author exhibits a knack for overturning expectations over the course of Wounds’ other stories. There were a few elements I wish were explored a bit more deeply, such as a briefly glimpsed lake monster. It’s a minor quibble, to be sure, but also a positive in its own right as I immediately wanted more!
“The Diabolist” follows the teenage daughter of a recently deceased occultist and her discovery of his misdeeds. We get a wonderfully unique narrator, and Ballingrud again subverts expectations with the particular choices he’s made here. “Skullpocket” was really the only story in Wounds that I didn’t much care for, and it felt a bit too Young Adult for me. It does have some nifty concepts, though, involving a small town and the literal monsters that live next door, the history of which is relayed to a group of children gathered to celebrate a ghouls deathday. It’s a mostly light-hearted, Gaiman-esque affair and a bit of midpoint palette cleanser before Wounds gets back to reveling in the darkness.
“The Maw” features a small town of a different sort, one that has been utterly devastated by the denizens of Hell who have crossed the border and driven out any traces of humanity. Mix, a teenage girl, agrees to help Oscar navigate the suddenly foreign terrain, acting as a coyote/tour guide as she smuggles him into this dangerous wasteland in search of his lost dog. Ballingrud, again, proves to be a master of imagery, and the work of his Surgeons is truly nightmarish stuff.
“The Visible Filth” is an incredibly potent story! Bartender Will finds a cell phone forgotten by a patron, and then makes the mistake of answering a text message on it. Darkness permeates this story the whole way through, and Ballingrud plays with our expectations of violence as the mental states of various characters shift in response to Will’s discovery of, and subsequent obsession with, this cell phone. There’s plenty of grisly imagery throughout, as well some hair-raising moments of pure haunting dread, such as a computer monitor broadcasting the image of a tunnel and what lurks inside. This one really got under my skin, and it’s a story that lingers well after you’ve finished reading it thanks to its ambiguities.
“The Butchers Table” ends Wounds on a high note as Ballingrud takes us back in time to the Colonial era, where a group of Satanists have boarded a pirate ship setting sail across the border into Hell itself, where they hope to dine with their Dark Lord. Once again, Ballingrud provides some great imagery, especially the finale’s dining hall, and while not all loose ends are tied up oh so neatly, he does bring the overarching story twisting throughout each of Wounds’ stories full circle.
As I noted above, permeability is key here and Ballingrud injects certain narrative strands in one story to be revisited later. Each of these six stories function well enough on their own, but when taken as a whole we’re presented with a richer tapestry and a fresh mythology on the nature of Hell on Earth that encompasses occult and cosmic horror, as well some dashes of fantasy here and there. The border separating us from Hell is highly diffuse, but thankfully the potent horrors pouring through are of the most engaging and entertaining sort. You might want to schedule a trip there soon.
Been looking forward to this book from the moment I finished the last Nathan Ballingrud collection, a few years back. And I read my copy of ‘Wounds’ right after the book arrived. One evening and the following morning was all it took and I didn’t want the stories to end.
As with Nathan’s first collection, I couldn’t leave this one alone. Genuinely entertaining horror containing all of the dread and hideous aesthetics of the best in the field.
The final novella – ‘The Butcher’s Table’ – is new to this collection and a work of the imagination that gave me genuine awe, bringing Conrad, Tolkien and early Barker to my mind. I’m still thinking about the portrayal of hell that has the epic feel of the classic depictions, the hells of Milton and Dante. A story worth twice the price of the hardback alone.
Get some.
Tales of the ordinary damned and the strange hell to which they belong.
The stories here all stand alone, but are tied together by the same version of hell, a strange and nearly Lovecraftian place. It was all inventively odd and moving, for an infernal realm, varied among stories for all that it was the same place.
Don’t look for decency or kindness–although you will find it in one of the stories. For the most part, these are tales of people who, although they seem and may even think of themselves as ordinary, have no souls. Love doesn’t drive them, even though they may claim it does. Only the chance to take something that makes them feel human–from the living, if need be–remains. And it does not go well.
There’s a satisfaction in watching their schemes fall apart, or in making them admit themselves to themselves, like a confession.
Recommended especially for fans of Clive Barker.
Well then.
After having just sprinted through Mr. Ballingrud’s debut collection ‘North American Lake Monsters,’ I knew I needed to jump into this one ASAP and now that I’ve finished it, it’s going to take some time to recover. Much like the first time I read Volume One of ‘Books of Blood’ by Clive Barker (I still need to read Volume Two!), I was left speechless and at awe at what just exploded forth from the pages.
What I liked: All of it! All of it! Alright, but seriously. This thing opened up with ‘The Atlas of Hell’ which threw us into the swaps in New Orleans and finished with ‘The Butcher’s Table’ which is one I’m going to have to return to and re-read. In between we get a stunning story in ‘The Diabolist’ which was far more emotional than I’d expected. ‘Maw’ piggy-backed off of that story, but then we fall into the apex of the book with ‘The Visible Filth.’ All of these stories were dark, grimy and make you feel like you need a shower.
What I didn’t like: Not much, really. If I had to nit pick, I’d maybe say ‘Maw’ didn’t connect with me all that much, but the story itself was fun. I think just being sandwiched into between ‘The Diabolist’ and ‘The Visible Filth’ worked against it.
Why you should buy it: ‘Wounds’ really is a stunning collection, filled with cinematic story telling and lush descriptions of some of the vilest acts out there. I couldn’t help but smile at just how brutal Ballingrud was going in some places and while I still haven’t watched the movie based off of ‘The Visible Filth’ I’ll be trying to find some time to fit it in here. Ballingrud really does deserve to be highlighted as an author to move up your TBR immediately and now I’ll wait excitedly for whatever his next project will be!
Recently finished Nathan Ballingrud’s excellent collection. Although I hadn’t read anything of his before I’m now a fan. The stories within Wounds are eerie, unsettling, and at times downright terrifying. Highly recommended!
I got this book in my Goodie Bag at Camp Necon this summer. I’d never heard of Nathan Ballingrud before, and sorry if I’m making myself sound ignorant.
What a great collection of short stories! The subtitle of the book is “Six Stories from the Border of Hell,” and that really nails it. These are truly unsettling stories filled with shocking imagery. The characters are all three-dimensional, the settings are original and disturbing. Perfect reading for the Halloween season.
Not much more to be said. If you like scary, unsettling short fiction, you will enjoy every page of this book.