Occultation and Other Stories

Occultation and Other Stories by Laird Barron
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Barron is a writers' writer. Believe me. Writing is hard work, and one can clearly see the results of Barron's efforts. It's a mean trick to be able to write so beautifully, and yet so brutally. The universe of Occultation and Other Stories fits in a dark niche between Algernon Blackwood's "The Willows," Brian Evenson's Dark Property, and Hemingway. It's a rough and tumble corner on the interstitial edge between body horror and high literary tradition, with some elements of cosmic horror. Though his work has been called "Lovecraftian" (a term I am beginning to hate), Laird Barron's work is so much more than that. It is far from pastiche, and his writing chops are far better than old H.P.'s.

Take, for example, the first story in the collection. How do you take a novel's worth of sweeping cosmic horror on an epoch scale and a deep-reaching character relationship and cram it all into a 27 page story? I have no idea. But if you read "The Forest," you can see the results. Here, Barron out-Lovecraft's Lovecraft, but without the treacle. This is a horror short that is as fulfilling as any literary novel, if not more fulfilling (and with hardly any "filler"). Five not-everlasting, but very long-lasting stars. Enough time to see constellations reshape themselves.

The title story shows a deft, deceptive hand, using anecdotal side stories and strange shadows to distract the reader long enough and convincingly enough to sneak up and smack the reader in the back of the head with the ending. Four stars for "Occultation".

"The Lagerstatte" is Barron at his subtley-rotting, understated, insidious best. Danni, the protagonist, may or may not be coming out of, or at least working her way through a fugue-state brought on by the accidental deaths of her husband and son, compounded by a long history of family misfortune. It's an excruciating tale, but wrapped up in familial "softness". Five stars.

"Mysterium Tremendum" is one of the best stories of cosmic horror I have read in a long time. Take Blackwood's force of nature, Lovecraft's cosmic scale and alien-ness, Ligotti's pessimism, add a layer of sheer terror and outright creepiness and you will start to get the idea. But that's only the start. Add depth of character and plausibility of setting and you've hit the 2nd layer. But there is so much more. Five stars.

I wondered at the title "Catch Hell," at first. But I can't think of a more appropriate title for this occult-drenched folk-horror story of oedipa-electrall revenge(???). Somehow, Barron has made every character in this story broken; every character a perpetrator, and every character a victim. Five stars.

When avant garde performance art goes wrong and the observer becomes the subject, "Strappado" is the result. Horrific for its understatement, this tale will work into your brain and leave all sorts of uncomfortable holes. Five brutal stars that I'd like to forget, but can't.

What is "The Broadsword"? A story, the name of a hotel, a weapon cutting through the veil around this world. It is a ghost story, an alien invasion, a revelation of cosmic terror, and a deep dive into drunkenness and insanity. It is all of these things, all at once, so sudden that the lines between them is indistinct, but slowly unfolding, like a cancer of thought and soul. Five stars.

"--30--" is as visceral, brutal, as primal a story as I've ever read. I'm still not sure if the narrator was insane or not, whether it was not all some grand hallucination. And, whether it was hallucination or reality, was it all engineered by the government or not? And how to Toshi and Beasley, from the first story in this collection, figure into all of this? Are they only peripheral or is there something going on in the off-stage shadows with these two? With so many questions left unanswered, one must ask "but did you like it with all these questions"? Yes, I liked it because of the questions! Five stars

"Six, Six, Six" blindsides you. Who is the bad guy or gal? What is evil? Who, even, is the protagonist? Tough questions, none of which are answered by the last, stunning line of the story. This thing was crafted and crafted well. You can feel the work that was poured into this story, but you can't see the cut marks on the marble, so to speak. Brilliant story, brilliantly written. Five stars.

Yes, you can see the work that went into these stories, but they are so clean and smooth in their execution that you don't notice the chisel marks. That is the beauty of Barron's craft and what sets his work above that of most of his contemporaries, especially those writing in the horror and dark fiction genres. Few are his equal. Precious few.

I don't think there is such a thing as a "good guy" in Barron's stories. At least not in this collection. The vagaries are so well conceived, though, that the reader finds himself spinning in circles in the dark, waiting for a blow to the back that may or may not come. It's a chilling sensation, and worth experiencing again!

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