Summer is all but over, and I am back in front of the keyboard. Well, not that I was ever really gone, but my summer break from the short story recommendations is over. So here they are, my August recommendations.
Over My Bones by Dana Vickerson (Apex)
This is a very, very short piece, like micro fiction length. So yeah, more of a bonus recommendation, really. This also means that it is kind of hard to give a resume without retelling the entire story, but as the title suggests, death is very much at the core of the story.
It has some lovely descriptions, so if you enjoy beautiful writing, evocative descriptions, but also stories that pack a lot of punch in few words, this is worth a quick read.
When White Roses Freeze by Amy Power Jensen (Manwaker’s Flash Fiction Podcast / Abyss and Apex)
This is a very slow read (or listen; I can recommend the podcast version). It is a drama, following a family in decline. The father has died, the brother has left, and the MC’s mother is dealing (or refusing to deal) with her trauma by literally freezing everything around her to ice while also refusing to interact with the outside world. Yeah, it is a sort of eerie, haunting version of Frozen.
The story was quite slow despite its length, and I did not really think much of it until the climax arrived, which changed my perspective and also, to some extent, what the story is about. It went from mostly being bleak for the sake of bleakness to then swinging back with a hard-hitting theme of inherited trauma. Honestly, that ending was so well written that it made me want to go back and reread the story.
I can recommend this one to readers who enjoy flash pieces, slow build-ups, and emotional gut-punches.
Seastrand Beyond By Anna Clark (Flash Fiction Online)
Maybe it is because I am a sucker for flash fiction and, for some reason I cannot quite pinpoint, stories set in old fishing villages, but this was right up my alley.
In Seastrand Beyond, we follow Agnes, an elderly lady who stays during winter in the quaint old fishing village which now functions as a bunch of summer rentals. Her task during winter: witnessing and documenting the messages left on the beach by the unseen ghosts in the sea.
Only, she is not there just to relay the messages online to whoever might be waiting for them. She is also waiting for a message from her mother’s ghosts. Only, when that message arrives, it opens up a can of worms regarding religious beliefs, the afterlife, and whether or not the afterlife is really all we hope it will be.
If you like small stories that asks big questions, and mellow, atmospheric writing, this might be the story for you.
Das Gesicht by Dale Bailey (Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles / The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Vol. 2)
The story is takes the form of an interview. A journalist is investigating a legendary film, interviewing the brilliant cameraman who filmed it. The cameraman relates the story of how he traveled from Germany after WWI along with his friends, an equally brilliant director and a beautiful actress, and together, they made films for Hollywood. But their friendships were not happy ones.
The cameraman was in love with the actress, who, in turn, was in love with the director. But the director was marred by the horrors he experienced during the war and he becomes increasingly difficult to work with and abusive towards the actress.
After breaking apart, the three make one final movie together, the legendary “Das Gesicht”, but during the screening, the cameraman realizes there are shots in that movie he did not make, scenes he did not cut, things that cannot be, impossible images reflecting his former friend’s war time traumas. But then again, cameras lies.
This is another slow tale but also one that builds up an eerie mood from the very beginning. It is clear that all is not right with the director, but the other characters are sucked into his world by his ambitions and uncompromizing craft, and ultimately they suffers with him. If you like eerie characters, this is well worth reading.
Toby Backman 