The Beast You Are : Stories by Paul Tremblay
I would like to thank Titan Books for an advance copy of this collection in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher - Titan
Published - Out Now
Price - £9.99 paperback £5.03 Kindle eBook
A haunting collection of short fiction from the bestselling author of The Pallbearers Club, A Head Full of Ghosts, and The Cabin at the End of the World.
Paul Tremblay has won widespread acclaim for illuminating the dark horrors of the mind in novels and stories that push the boundaries of storytelling itself. The fifteen pieces in this brilliant collection, The Beast You Are, are all monsters of a kind, ready to loudly (and lovingly) smash through your head and into your heart.
In “The Dead Thing,” a middle-schooler struggles to deal with the aftermath of her parents’ substance addictions and split. One day, her little brother claims he found a shoebox with “the dead thing” inside. He won’t show it to her and he won’t let the box out of his sight. In “The Last Conversation,” a person wakes in a sterile, white room and begins to receive instructions via intercom from a woman named Anne. When they are finally allowed to leave the room to complete a task, what they find is as shocking as it is heartbreaking.
I tend to think of short story collections as very similar to music albums. In some cases it’s one particular type of story again and again and again. On others lots of range and in some the artist surprises us by something you wouldn’t expect them to be able to try. Paul Tremblay is both a horror author and also a fan of the weirder side of fiction and in The Beast You Are: Stories with stories exploring both sides of an author but not perhaps will grab each author’s readers at the same time.
Among the tales I enjoyed were
(Ice Cold Lemonade - 25cents crossed out) Haunted House Tour - 1 per Person - a startling first tale of a successful horror author named Paul being disturbed by a memory of his childhood. The almost autobiographical nature of this tale gives it the feel of a confessional. Tremblay pulls us into this child’s game of a haunted house tour that gradually makes us great what is to come. Tremblay managed to creep us out, make us laugh and then terrify us by looking at the aftermath as the real more vaguer horror makes its presence known. Is that simply getting old or something nastier lurking nearby? The tale leaves it for us to decide.
Mean Time - a much shorter take of a man in town known for tracing paths in chalk around town. Then the narrator messes a path up. It’s a melancholy tale of random children being cruel but we get to feel the shame of what this died to a harmless man all alone in a city. A different kind of horror.
I Know You’re There - May be my favourite tale in the collection. Silas has suddenly lost his husband David. A man he finds dead on the floor after coming home - apparently due to a heart attack. He tells three people three different tales on what he found. Now this can be a tale of horror of the supernatural kind but for me more the horror of grief this royal separation of you from a loved one and how it could affect people. As things get explained to us the ending is one of the most devastating I’ve read.
The Postal Zone - The Possession Edition - has the return of Karen Brisette from A Headful of Ghosts - but this time dealing with the strange mail her articles generated. Funny and as readers of SF magazines can attest quite accurate.
Red Eyes - a strange childhood tale of a family meeting giant monsters. It’s Dahl-like and dark.
The Blog At The End of The World - another favourite and strangely not a pandemic tale! A young woman tells us about her experiences with strange deaths and we get a host of blogger comments some with sympathy, anger and conspiracy theories. The horror here how familiar this will sound.
Them: A Pitch - a tale told in the form of a comic outline. Impressively this tale simply of no dialogue. This post-apocalyptic tale is impressively scary.
House of Windows - a much weirder and powerful tale of a town suddenly finding a mysterious doorless building. The unsettling feeling of things not being right without any actual horror builds and builds and we get the feeling something horrible is coming but not sure exactly what. Very engaging.
The Last Conversation - a SF tale of a man waking up with no idea who he is. His unseen companion aids his recovery but he senses hidden agendas. It’s a tale building tension and yet also has moments of warmth and despair.
Mostly Size - a giant monster attack inspires a poem - managed to be strange and almost tragic.
The Party - a woman and her girlfriend arrive at a strange office party where she is told the end of the world is being celebrated. I loved how this makes us understand the couple and their dynamics and then the tale doesn’t make us get easy answers. Things aren’t right but we have no idea why and that makes things worse.
I’m going to highlight half the book is The Beast You Are which is a strange verse novella of talking animals and young children selected to meet a monster. It wasn’t really working for me but others may enjoy it.
Overall a very interesting collection showing us all the facets of an author who knows how to scare, surprise and puzzle you. Worth a look.
