A quirky mix of genre and style.

A acknowledgement of bias - over the past few years I have found Paul Tremblay to be a very reliably entertaining and thought provoking author. I may not necessarily rave about any one particular novel of his, but in an unassuming sort of way I have found myself becoming a real fan. Like many people I started with A Head Full of Ghosts, which I understand was something of a breakout hit for him. This I think has been a double-edged sword for the man. On the one hand, a novelist gets an audience - great. On the other, marketing for his books seem very reluctant to acknowledge him as anything other than a "horror" writer.

I don't class Tremblay as a horror writer. The misclassification is not as egregious as if someone were talking up Beatrix Potter as a rival to Stephen King, but I think it's still enough of an error to amount to his work frequently being mis-sold. Certainly he enjoys "genre", and often leans into horror tropes. But these inevitably wind up subverted and warped with the idea of scaring the reader rarely ever feeling like a main objective, and sometimes not even an after-thought. Cue misplaced reams of "but it wasn't scary" comments in his book reviews.

If you want a case in point for Tremblay being interested in far more than frights, then this collection of stories showcases a wide spectrum of style, subject, tone and imagination. It's a work from a confident author with real range. These tales are sometimes dark and unsettling, but also draw on whimsy, fantasy or are even sometimes short pieces that feel closest to a tone poem.

There's a lot of different tales packed in here. Most are either short or very short. It's maybe inevitable that with so many to choose from you wind up noticing those that work as well as those that don't (at least not quite as well). One or two are so short it's difficult to digest them as more than you might someone's "thought for the day", while some of the more fleshed out mini-stories can feel like an interesting setup without any attempt at payoff and fall a bit flat because of this. Others though I think make the most of the format. Our opening chapter is a straightforward telling of children putting on a haunted house tour, and is really rather charming. The Large Man is quite unlike anything I've come across before and blends fantasy, dystopia and noir in a very original way. I Know You Were There is a deft tale of grief. If one doesn't work for you, there's a good chance the next will.

Then there's two particularly meatier offerings, either of which you could get away with releasing solo. Indeed, I'm aware of The Last Conversation being otherwise available on Audible as I'd already bought it a few months ago(!). This is a fantastic novella, a tightly-plotted mystery that keeps you guessing and (I think) sticks the landing. Then of course is the title track. The Beast You Are tells a generational story of anthropomorphic animals, cults, politics, technological progress and, obviously, ritual sacrifice by lottery. I don't know why this isn't the mess it should be, but it succeeds in being deeply engaging, layered, and of course one-of-a-kind.

Certainly not a flawless collection, but that's perhaps inevitable for anything with so many parts - after all how many albums really are nothing but 10/10 bangers? And nonetheless these parts add up to an extremely satisfying whole. An excellent collection from one of the more interesting authors I know of.

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Is Tremblay Trying to be Funny?

I tried to like these stories, I really did, but I guess my sense of humour is a bit different to Paul Tremblay’s because they all fell a bit flat for me and I struggled to see the point in any of them. One thing I can say in their favour is that they were slightly less oblique than George Saunders’ offerings, so at least I wasn’t left feeling stupid and frustrated…apart from the fact that I shelled out eight quid for this, which means Paul Tremblay gets a laugh after all, eh?

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