The Ghost Sequences
by A.C. Wise
The title piece which closes the collection, is a good example of A.C. Wise’s style, which reinterprets common tropes and presents them to the reader anew in beautiful language and unusual formal structures. For instance, this story is, in essence, an art gallery’s description of a themed exhibition prepared by four artists, alternating with their personal account of the events leading up to the exhibition. Through their respective media, the artists express the theme of ghosts and hauntings. This turns out to be an unexpectedly dangerous subject when dark forces are unleashed by the unwitting artists.
There are other pieces in this volume which rework tropes of classic Gothic tales, for instance The Stories We Tell About Ghosts and How to Host a Haunted House Murder Mystery Party, a semi-comic meta-fictional set of instructions on how to organise (or, perhaps, write a story about) a party meeting all the genre elements which horror fiction and film have accustomed us to.
Indeed, in Wise we often sense a preoccupation both with other artforms (particularly visual ones) as well as popular culture. The title story is a case in point, but one could also mention Exhalation #10, (originally published in Ellen Datlow’s Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles) about a gruesome snufffilm of sorts and Excerpts from a Film (1942-1987). In the End, It Always Turns Out the Same is a dark Scooby-doo send-up. The Secret of Flight combines extracts from an imaginary play with epistolary exchanges about the mysterious disappearance of a leading actress. I Dress My Lover in Yellow concerns a cursed work of art, and although originally published in a volume of Lovecraftian tributes, its fevered imaginings reminded me particularly of the atmosphere of Chambers’ The King in Yellow (perhaps the reference to the colour in the title is no coincidence).
How the Trick is Done and The Men in From Narrow Houses both deal with the world of magic shows and magicians. Unfortunately, I’m not really into their more fantastical, surreal style and, given that the volume opens with the former story, I was initially concerned that this collection was not for me. If, like yours truly, you are more into mainstream supernatural fiction, albeit presented in novel and original ways, fear not and read on – there are plenty of stories which fit that description, including the brilliantly creepy folk-horror piece The Nag Bride, which is original to this collection.
I haven’t mentioned all the stories in The Ghost Sequences, nor can I do justice to them in this brief review. But I must find some space to also credit the amazing cover design by Vince Haig, and the cover art by Olga Beliaeva, based on a photograph by Serge N. Kozintsev, which stunningly complements this set of eerie tales.
Here is the full list of featured stories:
How the
Trick is Done
The
Stories We Tell About Ghosts
The
Last Sailing of the “Henry Charles Morgan” in Six Pieces of Scrimshaw (1841)
Harvest
Song, Gathering Song
The
Secret of Flight
Crossing
How to
Host a Haunted House Murder Mystery Party
In the
End, It Always Turns Out the Same
Exhalation
#10
Excerpts
from a Film (1942-1987)
Lesser
Creek: A Love Story, A Ghost Story
I
Dress My Lover in Yellow
The
Nag Bride
Tekeli-li,
They Cry
The
Men From Narrow Houses
The
Ghost Sequences
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| "Morning Tea" the photograph by Serge N. Kozintsev, adapted for the cover art (artist site) |
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