R.B. Russell
Ray Russell has become very familiar around here. With the publication of this review, we've reviewed all of his published collections. We've also reviewed several books published by the excellent Tartarus Press, which he and Rosalie Parker run. The two of them were also kind enough to take part in the inaugural interview of our new small press interview series. Mr. Russell's talents go even further still and include illustrations for Tartarus Press covers and musical composition, making him one of several renaissance men who seem to appear in greater concentrations among weird fiction authors than they do among other populations.
Mr. Russell's latest collection, Literary Remains, collects eight original short stories as well as two that were previously published elsewhere. This collection, and indeed the rest of Mr. Russell's work, couldn't be more different from the intellectually shocking, in your face brand of weird fiction practiced by Mark Samuels. Mr. Russell's brand of weird fiction is far gentler and subtler.
One of my favorite tales in Literary Remains is "Another Country," which is one of the more overtly weird in the collection (it's ending is, anyway). In it, the publicist for a major publishing company attempts to visit one of its critically acclaimed authors who has more or less gone AWOL in an unnamed country. What he finds is a disgruntled man who has numerous grievances against his publisher and the only other person in his life, his ailing mother. As other reviewers have noted, this story creates a very claustrophobic atmosphere. Additionally, permeating the whole thing is a sense of melancholy emanating from the fact that the author's work has in his eyes been twisted into something that is meaningless to him.
Also good was "Loup-Garou," in which a man views an obscure French film at a cinema while waiting on a job interview for which he arrived much too early. The characters in the film share a number of uncanny resemblances with the man's life that cannot be easily explained away. Years later, when he is finally able to track the scarce film down, it is not entirely as he remembers it and reality itself becomes impossible to ascertain. The resulting rage that is mentioned towards the end of the tale threatens to turn him into the creature that gave the film its name.
Another favorite was "Blue Glow," which in my opinion is as representative of Mr. Russell's work as any tale is. It is the story of a recently divorced man who notices what appears to be a dalliance between a man who lives across the street and a woman who visits him periodically. Eventually, he meets the man and thus begins an odd process whereby he comes to occupy the man's apartment, his clothes, his possessions, his woman, and his very identity. Meanwhile, the things he's disposed of in order to obtain this new life show signs of being used by someone. The reasons and motivators for the characters' actions are vague at best and in the final analysis, no one seems to be in control of their own destinies.
"A revelation" is also enjoyable. In it, a council inspector making a routine inspection of a home encounters an attic with a padlock on it and a nervous tenant. I'll say no more.
Finally, "Where They Cannot Be Seen" is a great conclusion to this collection. It is the story of two married couples taking their regular vacation together. Tensions among the group are manifest from the outset, and when two members of the group pair up illicitly one night, their actions separate them from their spouses in a uniquely physical way. This story feels like the most heartfelt and of any in the collection and its portrayal of tension reminiscent of Mr. Russell's excellent novella Bloody Baudelaire (review here).
Literary Remains feels in many respects like a work of transition for Mr. Russell. While he maintains his trademark subtlety, the stories in this collection feel on balance less atmospheric and more overtly weird than his earlier work. However he proceeds in the future, I have no doubt that Mr. Russell will continue to be one of the more unique voices in weird literature. Let's hope he keeps writing at a relatively quick pace.
Rating: 8/10
The True First
Literary Remains was first published by PS Publishing in 2010 in two editions: a standard jacketed hardcover and a traycased jacketed hardcover signed by the author.
[This review was based on a review copy]
0 comments:
Post a Comment