Drowning In The Dark And Other Stories by Matt Tighe
I would like to thank the author and IFWG Publishing for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher – IFWG Publishing
Published – Out Now
Price – £10.94 paperback £3.96 ebook
A beach that wipes people from memory. Aliens that just want to help humanity along a little bit. Monsters who love their fight club. A woman who trades a piece of her future to help a child. Guilt that serves as a door to dark visions for a young boy. Matt Tighe's Drowning in the Dark and Other Stories is a collection of the bitter sweet, the darkly comedic, and the disturbingly confronting. Including multi-award winning and nominated tales as well as originals, the characters within will scare you, hurt you, and raise you up for the truest of reasons-- they are you.
Horror often really suits short story collections. That disruption of reality that I associate most with horror that things are not as they should be is really effective in a short sharp shock either at what just happened or is about to happen. The collection allows for variety and a chance to explore the same theme from different angles. Matt Tighe provides some chilling tales in the very interesting collection Drowning In The Dark And Other Stories which I found has tales of families, being lost in the world with very little help to get people out of the situations they find themselves in.
Among the tales I enjoyed were: -
A Good Big Brother – This uses he perspective of a child to help us work out the world to great effect. Our not quite old enough son of the family is being taught to use a gun. Although this is the Australian countryside it feels strange and slowly the clues as to what has happened I the world start to appear. The pressure builds as we realise his mother is pregnant and there is a lack of emergency services and this culminates in a final act where everything comes together and the unspoken idea what actually may be at the gate and what this child may have to do about it is left unsaid but hammers home this world no longer offers an easy childhood.
Monstrous Behaviour – I really liked the slightly dark humour running through this tale where we meet Becca the cleaner of the are arena where monsters fight. This is attracting the interest of people in the military. But things aren’t quite as they seem. Becca tells us the monsters are just putting on a show and instead perhaps the most dangerous people in the Areana are the humans and then with a smart reveal we find exactly how this unusual collection do save themselves. It uses a rarely used monster to smart effect which I really enjoyed.
Memories of Blue – this tale moves into the world of technology horror and heartbreakingly this comes out of good intentions. Our narrator is a man in a retirement home who clearly has memory issues. His daughter has decided a new quantum tunnelling invention may help that. Its such a nice idea that Tighe finds a disturbing edge without anything too horrific occurring in that was a very impressive outcome for the story. It really packs a punch in a few pages.
Dead-Go – Uses technology two as we come to the potential reanimation of a recently deceased and well thought of company employee. The new Dead-Go technology allows the dead back to life. We feel the joy of people finding their loved ones returned but again there is a reveal here that reminds us everyone is still on company time.
Trial By Fire – This has a really interesting perspective here as we meet the husband of a scientist who is desperate to aid creatures dying in Bush fires. The question here is how far do you go to save things and it pushes the story into the longstanding question of ethics in science. Our driven scientist has a great intention but when we see the side effects of their idea, they move the story into strange body horror but also the big feeling that now Pandora is out of her box. Its an unsettling tale where things keep getting worse in just a few pages once we realise what has happened.
A Tomorrow With You In It – two men knock on the door of a women’s house with a dead girl alongside them. This dramatic opening and our character wondering what is being asked of her has a really interesting moral dilemma. What do you sacrifice for a good deed? We find out the source of our character’s magic and the price that she pays for this too. A tale that gives an unsettling yet happy ending is very rare and I liked how this paid off.
Renting Space – This story uses the idea of people drifting into unpleasant jobs to survive and finds a really chilling horror story in it. Our narrator is very much someone life happens to. He’d drifted in relationships, work and just falls into a real estate job. His boss is making it clear he needs to rent homes or the job goes. It is about putting on a big smile and ignoring the truth of a situation. Our narrator sells a home to desperate mother and daughter but we find this house has a dangerous past. Can you turn a blind eye as long as you get paid? Can you live with yourself if you didn’t actually do anything actively wrong? There is no evil plan at work, but a lot of people just ignore things to make money to earn their keep and that creates the most powerful horror story.
Beach Memories – A neat short sharp weird horror tale. Our narrator watches people just vanish on the seashore and when they mention it to people’s families no one knows what they’re on about. It unsettling and we watch reality being played with and then we get a fine kicker as we see who else has been affected by whatever is going on. The lack of any explanation makes this all the creepier a tale.
Guess Who’s Coming To Christmas Dinner – Here the idea of someone brining their girlfriend to Christmas dinner to meet the family creates a slightly ominous yet surreal tale. Our narrator is the youngest child watching her brother’s beloved charm the family. But she seems to change appearance. The interesting dimension here and one with a bit of tongue in check humour is what is the prey being seeked out in this story? Its quite unexpected and the finale senses someone has gotten away with it too! A strong story!
Death Meets Noel Samuelson – It is not a horror story but one that uses death to create a warmer story and indeed here ts death the personification as the starring role. Noel Samuleson is a young boy seeing death at work. We follow them meeting a few more times across his life. It’s about the fragility of life but also sometimes how knowing someone respects you can lead to a little act of kindness. I really liked this one.
Drowining In The Dark – the final and longest story of the collection and for me the best tale is this very dark tale that deservedly gives the collection’s title is this chilling tale of childhood and innocence lost. We are told in the first line that our narrator killed their brother at twelve years old. From that impressive eye-catching story we find a family tragedy slowly played out. Two brothers lose their mother early onto cancer and their Dad is clearly struggling as he gets a promotion.
An event happens that is tragic and has further repercussions for this family right makes us feel the pain it creates, the confusion and how the wider community also struggle to support. All of which feels very real normal horror but it’s in the final acts that the supernatural and darker elements come into play. It comes out of the blue, it delivered really smartly and Tighe does not shy away from consequences in this story. A true horror story will haunt someone forever. A powerful unforgettable story.
Drowning In The Dark and Other Stories is a very impressive collection often focused on families being disrupted. There is a sense of post pandemic confusion as societies get shattered and don’t come together as we expect and the variety of tales and the way horror creeps into them really struck me. Highly recommended!
