A review that originally appeared in Black Static #82/83:-
And so to the book that at the time of writing (mid-December) I consider to be the best I’ve read in 2022 and one of the finest fiction collections of recent years, LOOK WHERE YOU ARE GOING NOT WHERE YOU HAVE BEEN (Luna Press Publishing pb, 342pp, £12.99) containing eleven stories by Steven J. Dines. Dines has nine Black Static credits and seven of those stories have found their way into this collection, along with one apiece from Interzone and Crimewave. The two remaining stories are previously unpublished and also the longest pieces in the book. To my mind the distinguishing feature of Dines’ fiction is the risks that he takes, both with narrative structure and the emotional authenticity of what he commits to the page, the personal aspect. Of course all writers worth their salt bring something personal to their fiction, but in Dines’ case the feeling is rawer than with most, an impression confirmed by the end story notes in which he reveals something of the events in his life that bled into these stories.
After a brace of introductions by Ralph Robert Moore and Johnny Mains we get into things proper with ‘Men Playing Ghosts, Playing God’ in which four residents of a care home try to ease the feelings of a recently bereaved widow by leaving messages from her dead husband, only to end up imprisoning Death in the basement of the home, with dire consequences for all. This is a superficially light hearted story, with Henry Eddowes and his three friends vividly drawn and each given their own endearing quirks of character. Death is an ominous figure, but easily overpowered. But as the story progresses more serious concerns intervene, with the idea that the natural order of things cannot be impeded with impunity, Dines wrapping it all up with a brilliant end twist that seems completely against the run of play, but at the same time so appropriate given who these people are. In ‘So Many Heartbeats, So Many Words’ failed writer Simon, wife Sue, and their verbally challenged son Alfie live in a rental property they refer to as the House of Mould. The couple are drifting apart for various reasons, but after a romantic revival of sorts everything is plunged into chaos by a final shock. There is so much to commend this story, which is told in a series of “chapters” that seem to count down to the end reversal of fortune. Many will be able to identify with Simon’s stalled writing career, his attempts to put down in words his imaginative visions, while the dementia of his father and their failed relationship adds yet another frisson. Dines catches another trick in having Alfie twist words, which is both amusing and at the same time embodies the communication problems that exist within this family unit. Running through it all is the sense of life and love having gone wrong, of people struggling to do the best they can with the cards that have been handed them, all of which ends in a moment of heart shattering disaster.
The family in ‘The Space That Runs Away With You’ have had one of their boys abducted, subsequent to which they have moved into a new home where they are forbidden to go into the attic. The artist father wants the attic to remain a place of unknown possibility, but his son has other ideas. Underlying the story is a sense of grief, an awareness of how loss can sour every aspect of our lives and tragedy lay the roots of obsession. Wracked by guilt the protagonist draws the missing Michael into every illustration he produces in a tale that is keenly felt and heart-rending. ‘The Broken and the Unmade’ is a ghost story with a difference. In 1943 Saul in the death camps is saved twice by a young boy. In the present day Saul lives with son Nate and family and is horrified, both by Nate’s bullying of his wife and the world itself in which figures of darkness achieve iconic status. It is up to grandson Joshua to achieve closure for them all. This story is so keenly felt and beautifully realised, with the horrors of the Holocaust and how they echo down into the present day brought to compelling life on the page, while the end twist took me completely by surprise, but at the same time made perfect sense within the context of the story. Brilliant and clever.
‘The Things That Get You Through’ is the story of James Graves whose wife dies in a road accident, and James tries to hurry the grieving process, along the way enlisting the help of a mannequin. As with some of the other stories, there is an amusing side to this, with James’ emotional contortions delighting the reader at the same time as they shock and disturb us. The schlock horror ending shouldn’t work, but it does and magnificently so. In ‘Pendulum’ a woman is deserted by her partner when she gives birth to a handicapped child. Years later there comes a moment of reckoning. This story is constructed in a way that mirrors its central conceit, narrated by the woman who swings the story back and forth through time. It is a terrible, heartbreaking work of fiction, one that disturbs and at the same time makes you want to cry for the wasted lives, to grab gamer Ellis by the throat and choke the life out of him, to love and care for Jack and his mother Milly, to rage and rage at the bullies who make an already heavy life such an intolerable burden.
In the post-apocalyptic world of ‘The Sound of Constant Thunder’ Alan remains behind in the city to protect the rabbits from so called “Eaters”. The arrival of the woman Charlotte and her baby bring his existence and its purpose into sharp focus, but as ever no good deed goes unpunished. Dines is excellent at bringing the details of his apocalypse to vivid life, with the very mundanity of existence after the worst appears to have happened reinforcing the feel of authentiticy, while in the character of Alan, a simple minded person who has found a kind of happiness, but ultimately cannot escape the worthless judgement of his hateful father, he has created a memorable protagonist. We’re back with the Fenwick family of ‘So Many Heartbeats’ for ‘The Harder It Gets the Softer We Sing’. They have moved into a new, mould free house, but the events that took place in the previous story are still echoing in their shared lives. Sue takes delivery of a baby doll and claims that he is their son. Resistant at first, Simon is forced to accept this compromise with reality if the family is to continue. It’s an epic story, with each section titled from some literary rule that the author then breaks in what follows. The result is a bravura performance, with shocks and epiphanic moments in equal measure, showing how sometimes you have to embrace the impossible to continue, Simon’s acceptance of “the baby” mirroring his mother’s acceptance of her husband’s “foible” (another revelation contained in the narrative).
Rust is ‘Looking for Landau’, a search that takes him through encounters both violent and sexual in nature. We are never told who or what Rust is, though he seems to be immortal and seeks Landau for access to a “door”, all of which suggests either an alien or an angel. It doesn’t really matter though, as it’s all in the journey. At bottom the story is a quest of sorts, riveting and full of incident, from fights at biker bars to conversation with a dead woman, the unnatural quality of it all seeping through the words. The final trick which Landau uses against Rust winds up the story with a novel twist. The third story to feature the Fenwick family, a novella titled ‘This House is Not Haunted’, deals with the fallout from the decision in the previous story to allow a doll into their lives as a substitute son. Doll Sam is driving a wedge between Sue and Simon while at the same time having traumatic effects on Alfie. The story opens with Simon resolving the situation and ends with that decision taken and the reader told to start again from the beginning, so that it is a story that swallows its own tail. Again the emotions are keenly felt, with Simon’s writing career helping to shape how he reacts to things and also becoming part of the battleground between him and Sue. He realises how badly his own father let him down and doesn’t want to repeat that failure with his own son, but Sue sees things differently. The story is engrossing and compelling, with an emotional intensity that is almost stressful for the reader. Taken in conjunction with the other two Fenwick stories it gives us a wonderful example of literary fiction merged with horror to the betterment of both.
Brothers Stephen and Cai are the only survivors of an overthrown royal family, marooned in a wintery wasteland and keeping close to the corpse of the dragon that took them to safety so that the heat of its body will warm them, and which they call ‘dragonland’, Stephen envisaging a new kingdom for him to rule. Against them are wolves and a monster, while Cai is beguiled by the light on a distant mountain top that he thinks is proof their mother still lives. The story is told from the viewpoint of Stephen, who is his father’s son, annoyed with and yet at the same time jealous of Cai, their mother’s favourite. The dissonance between the two drives the story, each of them haunted by the events of the past, its dead hand ruling Stephen’s life, while Cai is free to forge a new future. This is a story rich in detail, one where much more is hinted at than is revealed, with the father seeming like a tyrant for all that Stephen honours his memory, so that you can see he might fare better if he was to let go of this family tie that is like a noose round his neck, binding him to an empty dream of dragonland. While the setting is fantastical, it is the clash of character that drives the plot, the fight to survive at odds with the absence of any real reason to do so. I loved it. Finally we have some story notes in which Dines gives the background to these fictions, with details of how events in his own life were used to flesh out the authenticity of the work, the fiction helping to make sense of the reality that inspired it. With its confessional quality, this is an act of bravery on the part of the writer and something that makes me love the book all the more. To repeat myself, it is one of the best collections of short fiction that I have ever read, unique not just for the depth of emotion but for the technical virtuosity and range displayed by the writer, and the way in which the stories interact with each other, something I’ve only hinted at here. And regardless of the cover price shown above, if you nip over to Amazon right now you can nab a copy for only £2.98*.
*No longer true, alas, but still well worth the cover price
Trumpetville 