Crossroads
My review of Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic (Tor) appeared in the Charleston Post and Courier on Sunday. Aparently, my regular ed was on vacation because the review was trimmed somewhat. Now I'm used to being edited judiciously, and this piece was cut for reasons of space, but the end result wasn't quite as sweet as the short feature should have been. So here's the full monty...
What’s so strange about the South? Quite a lot according to Crossroads, an anthology that mixes mystery and horror, fantasy and science fiction, cautionary tales and American Gothic storytelling.
Somehow, this eclectic bunch makes the book worth reading. Editors F. Brett Cox and Andy Duncan have compiled stories that are all written by Southerners, by birth or residence. This doesn’t mean that they’re all great writers, but there is an authentic sense of people and place. These scribes inhabit a land of old dark houses, bizarre coincidences, lost love and dimension-rending cicadas.
Several Southern literary giants are mentioned in the introduction, including William Faulkner, Mark Twain and Truman Capote. Most of the Crossroads writers are obscure by comparison, although Big Fish author Daniel Wallace contributes a canny piece called Slippered Feet. Charleston’s own Bret Lott is also represented, although his Rose is a less successful Faulkner pastiche. Stand-out entries include Andy Duncan’s The Map to the Homes of the Stars, a hip story that only loses its cool in the last paragraph.
Scott Edelman’s My Life is Good is a fun time travel adventure laced with biting wit. Marian Carache provides a masterclass in economical storytelling. Her The Moon and the Stars is by turns grubby, beautiful, sensuous and tragic.
No matter where it’s set, a ghost story is still a ghost story. The best tales in this collection help readers to suspend their disbelief with robust narratives, building a strong relationship with the characters. Despite this, all these yarns are linked and illuminated by the mysterious twilight of the South.
What’s so strange about the South? Quite a lot according to Crossroads, an anthology that mixes mystery and horror, fantasy and science fiction, cautionary tales and American Gothic storytelling.
Somehow, this eclectic bunch makes the book worth reading. Editors F. Brett Cox and Andy Duncan have compiled stories that are all written by Southerners, by birth or residence. This doesn’t mean that they’re all great writers, but there is an authentic sense of people and place. These scribes inhabit a land of old dark houses, bizarre coincidences, lost love and dimension-rending cicadas.
Several Southern literary giants are mentioned in the introduction, including William Faulkner, Mark Twain and Truman Capote. Most of the Crossroads writers are obscure by comparison, although Big Fish author Daniel Wallace contributes a canny piece called Slippered Feet. Charleston’s own Bret Lott is also represented, although his Rose is a less successful Faulkner pastiche. Stand-out entries include Andy Duncan’s The Map to the Homes of the Stars, a hip story that only loses its cool in the last paragraph.
Scott Edelman’s My Life is Good is a fun time travel adventure laced with biting wit. Marian Carache provides a masterclass in economical storytelling. Her The Moon and the Stars is by turns grubby, beautiful, sensuous and tragic.
No matter where it’s set, a ghost story is still a ghost story. The best tales in this collection help readers to suspend their disbelief with robust narratives, building a strong relationship with the characters. Despite this, all these yarns are linked and illuminated by the mysterious twilight of the South.
posted by Nick Smith @ 7:33 AM
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