The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All: Stories

I continue to debate whether 'The Beautiful Thing...' or 'Swift to Chase' is my favorite Barron shorts collection. This was the first book by Laird Barron I encountered, and I think it was a great introduction - I have now read everything released by him (that I am aware of) and this contains some of my favorite shorts by anyone, ever, including 'The Jaws of Saturn', 'The Men From Porlock', and the mind battering conclusion 'More Dark'.What I do not question is that Laird Barron is my favorite living author, as a modern and refreshingly original writer that should *appeal* to Lovecraft fans but *is not* simply a boring knock-off riding HP's coattails (I could poke at quite a few but I'm not here to talk trash). Barron may occasionally treat his characters with a similar disregard, even spite, but a major distinction which really stands out to me is his obvious compassion and humanity, even as he is about to utterly destroy a character's physical or mental health. Dialogue is organic and rarely serves merely to thin the fourth wall for the sake of plot development/story progression (except when that style itself is an intentional flavor of the story and a legitimate method of storytelling). Some characters you might recognize, at least by name, from other stories. This is not yet when he begins to fully realize an intertwined universe, but you can see those pieces beginning to fit together as his voice evolves in this third collection.I hesitate to use genre labels... horror, sci-fi, fantasy, weird/bizarro, etc. and its fusions are becoming arbitrary and inadequate descriptions for writers like Laird Barron as they cross all of these and more with experimental styles, tipping hats in every direction while realizing their individuality emerging from a combination of influences both literary and life. So when I see a handful of low star reviews griping it's "not horror" or it's "boring", all I can suspect is that they either just don't get it, or didn't immerse enough to try to. It is unfortunate the use of second person to describe one's subjective opinion has become so universal, as if every english speaker wishes to subconsciously push others to wear their reality-goggles - hopefully the intrigued will not be dissuaded from giving this author a try based on the reviews of a few people that didn't care for his descriptive streams littered with suddenly erratic or abstract diversions peering into an outrageous imagination. It may be an acquired taste, which is to say more of a cult following kind of writer than a Billboard Pop chart cookie-cutter horror writer with TV movies taking artistic liberties with his creations.As in the past, this collection is in great part dark and brooding. There is a lot of slow-burn in many of his stories, building quietly with atmosphere and series' of seemingly (but not really) insignificant thoughts and incidents. Swift to Chase is a little more flashy, direct, and fast-paced if that's what you're looking for (definitely not compromising in fantastically creative visions in the process)... but if you just want Fisher Price: My First Generic Horror Stereotype you will be SOL on this one. On the occasion a classic/cliché plot device is used (such as the hunting party of Blackwood's Baby), expect that it does not wrap around and follow the same ABCs of what you've seen/read before. With all Barron's works, expect that it will not have a textbook Stephen King ending you knew would happen halfway through; expect the unexpected, including unprovoked rants that temporarily derail the continuity of the story, and that sometimes this stream-of-consciousness will ride out the rest of the story. You either feel it or you don't. That is what makes him who he is, and one of the things I absolutely cherish about his works. If you want a crash-course on Barron's occasional tribal pounding of cackling lunacy disguised as slam poetry strange fiction, Vastation is an excellent selection. If that gem doesn't tickle your pineal gland, perhaps this isn't the author for you. But for his following, it is precisely that style that sets him out from the rest. It is HIS real voice, not a semi-original idea cast in a template and written by a word processing algorithm like the mainstream slashermonster horror the haters are looking for. There is emotion and complexity sewn into these words. Even small-part stock characters either arrive or depart with unexpected flourishes.A personal anecdote, if you won't mind me a while longer. For as long as I can remember I have had this image that pops up in my mind every time I follow existential wanderings and introspections. The image is the ultimate and omnipresent answer for all of my questions, always the conclusion I draw when pained to wonder anything which causes me confusion or anxiety. For years I believed the image my mind keeps flashing is arriving from my hippocampus, undoubtedly stored from an ancient session drooling over a Ralph Steadman book, although my memory of it was never exact - certain facets of it always changing, the color palette switching from vibrant to pastel to greyscale depending on the question it is answering. Finally, one day I sought out the Steadman book I believed this image to be from, and discovered that no, this image in my mind's eye which asserts itself daily as the indisputable resolution to every quandary, every fear, every hope and regret I contemplate, this image is not something which had imprinted from somewhere else. Perhaps the theme or style is derived from a convoluted collection of things that have moved me in the past, but it is an image that does not exist in any corporeal sense. In a way, this new development felt vindicating, as if it were some expression of my individual subconscious which speaks of who I am, not just someone else's memory. I almost wished I could draw or paint in order to breathe life into the idea, maybe see if someone else felt the same about the absolute Truth at the center of everything. But it was also simultaneously disheartening and lonely to realize this notion was not one I knew I shared with another member of humanity. Still the conception continues to flash at the end of every private thought, always shifting in its tone, even in my perception of it after it strikes.But finally, after falling deep into this book a couple years ago, putting off homework for entire nights to lay in my dorm reading myself to sleep, I found my cohort and comrade. In the last story of this anthology, 'More Dark', my subconscious self-portrait is painted in words, and connects with me in a way no other author ever has before. This helped me realize the often unseen manner in Barron's crafting of his stories' background. The mood he sets with environments often becomes the largest piece of the picture - while I could copypaste some quick, catchy quote, this would not begin to do justice to all the space around that sentiment. While the purpose and punchline of his stories (More Dark in particular) can be definite and unmistakeable, they are only just words from a mundane theme when left alone in the negative space. Every word up until then, however, is one more intentional step toward the end, one more brush stroke outside the centerpiece, and be it abstract or meandering it provides a tone to the story which subtly defines it. A blurry, blown up image of something I don't recognize yet subconsciously just know what it is. He draws up complex emotions, often through indirect means and metaphors, with the beauty of nature stripped down to its shear apathy once removed from an anthropocentric bias, or with a character's inner contemplations possibly reflecting the author's true life, definitely reflecting mine... it's as if he draws the chalk outline of a shadow in pitch dark for reference, and then removes it to return me to the big picture with new understanding and fresh eyes in order to coinhabit his realm. The resulting piece is, as they say, more than merely the sum of its parts. Because of this I can recall each story as a whole picture, rather than a chronological sequence of isolated fragments. These pictures he creates move me in an indescribable way (although I have obviously attempted in vain to describe it at length), and this is why Laird Barron is my favorite living author.If you actually read this whole thing, I say to you either thank you, sorry, or both of those.Love,Bugs

Nine stories comprise the latest collection, The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All, by Laird Barron. His brand of cosmic horror depends largely on several media and movement and mythos, the least of which are Lovecraftian and '70's horror/crimesploitation/grindhouse and noir. The best of the bunch manage to combine all of the above. The least of the bunch, though, still stand on their own as worthies in this collection.If you've read Barron's The Croning, then you're already familiar with his Old Leech mythos, and perhaps TBTTAUA would situate nicely beside your having read the novel. If you haven't read the novel but end up reading the collection, I suppose the reverse could hold true. Largely, Barron manages to populate his stories with broken characters--I'd even hazard to call them "beautiful losers" of the sort Bob Seger and Stephen King might appreciate and write about themselves--who, if they are male are of the rough-and-tumble sort. The kind who'd just as soon whip your ass as look at you straight. Proactive sorts who do nothing--NOTHING--but hasten their own demise. That's not a spoiler, mind. If you know anything about cosmic horror, you already know where I'm coming from, don't you? If you're new to that territory, then it's *still* not a spoiler. It's a warning. You're going to read train wrecks, son. Inexorable. Ineffable from your brainpain. There will be blood and hair and spit and teeth and viscera. However, if you're also looking for some protagonists of the female persuasion, then "The Redfield Girls" (creepy sisterhood of the traveling educators lake story) and "The Carrion Gods in Their Heaven" (lesbian werewolves, yo, and not nearly as sensational as it might sound) are holy-amazeballs short stories.But to get you to inhabit even briefly the life of his characters, Barro has this knack for pulling you into their world. I come at his work first for the atmosphere. He is nothing if not a writer of place, and geography *is* madness, of a sort, in these tales of cosmic horror. It's tentacular stuff, I tell you. And I hasten to add that he has this knack for using dreams in Act 1 or Act 2 to lay the groundwork for the waking nightmares of the Act 3 mindfuggery he unleashes on the protags to somehow codify to entire story's logic.It's kind of hard to go into great detail on short stories without spoiling them outright, and I think there tends to be more margin for what works/doesn't with individual pieces in a TOC as opposed to the four-course meals novels offer, but I digress. The dark horse story--the one I thought "meh" but ended up "frak yeah!" on--is "Hand of Glory." It shows greater brushstrokes of the aforementioned noir and could've been a late 60's horror script trying hard to grow into 70's clothes. Trust me.As I'm a sucker for hunting stories, "Blackwood's Baby" and "The Men from Porlock" didn't disappoint. The first was more deal-with-the-Devil meets Hemingway on acid. The latter . . . I had to set it aside a few times to decompress from the suspense.Only "The Siphon" and "Jaws of Saturn" (the lone original piece published in the TOC) didn't win me over or sneak up on me the way the other stories did, but, in the immortal words of Primus: The Can't All Be Zingers. Neither of them were clunkers, either. That said, as cinematic overall as his prose stylings, Barron ever gives me an impression of movies conjuring in my headspace. And I could see both stories as Carpenter-esque films. Maybe early to mid-nineties. Or better yet, the aughties in the case of "The Siphon." But that's just me.And that's another thing to bear in mind if you're new coming to Barron's writing. The man knows just how close to edge to pull you into a scene. You know there's a Big Reveal(tm). There won't be a single cheap parlor trick. He is no charlatan of the written word; Barron will misdirect with a sound or a character's stray thought. He pulls away before the protags can summon the courage to look, but he's already tricked the imagination into gear. It's the good stuff, Maynard.Now, the real odd ducks are "More Dark," a meta-commentary on horror and the horror scene with plenty of wink-winks and nudge-nudges to writers and editors in the field but that I could only appreciate from a distance. What I did get tickled hell outta me (see what I did there?).But the outlier of the bunch stands in "Vastation," a kind of diary-of-a-madman meets quantum horror. Yes, quantum horror. "Hand of Glory" = 1. "Vastation" = 2. Then the rest of the stories.This collection was worth the money I plunked down and the time I spent reading it. While I haven't read his other collections (yet), I've read The Croning and The Light Is the Darkness and short work here and there. The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All fires on all cylinders.

Another fantastic collection of stories from Laird Barron,every bit as good(if not slightly superior the The Imago Sequence),Barron continues to improve and build on his own personal Mythos.Although you dont have to have read The Croning to appreciate this book,I have found that both works are enhanced by the experience.

Laird Barron's universe is perfectly realised, unremittingly grim and hugely addictive.These books are superficially short story compilations but are fundamentally glimpses of the same hidden world experienced through the eyes of those who rub up against it. Excellent!

Terrifying to the bone

Ausgedehnte Splatterorgien sucht man bei Laird Barron vergebens, dafür schleicht sich das Grauen auf leisen Sohlen an und überfällt den Leser aus dem Hinterhalt. Die Hauptcharaktere seiner Stories sind oftmals gescheiterte Existenzen am Rande der Gesellschaft, mit einer besonderen Beziehung zur Gewalt: Glücksritter, Großwildjäger, Bodyguards oder Geldeintreiber. Obwohl sie das Leben nur von seiner rauhen Seite kennen, werden sie früher oder später mit einem Grauen konfrontiert, das weit über den Tod hinausreicht. "Blackwoods Baby" kehrt z.B. die Rolle des Jägers und des gejagten Wildes um, die Jagdgesellschaft aus "The Men from Porlock" begegnet einer Macht, die viel älter ist als die Wildnis, und selbst eine sterile Geschäftswelt kann ihre dunklen Seiten haben ("The Siphon").Es gibt auch Ausnahmen von der Regel: in "The Carrion Gods in their Heaven" geht eine Frau eine unheilige Allianz ein, um ihrem gewalttätigen Ehemann zu entkommen, und "The Redfield Girls" kann als Warnung vor zu viel Neugier verstanden werden, die manchen Charakteren zum Verhängnis wird.Die besten Stories sind jedoch "Hand of Glory" und das post-apokalyptische "Vastation". Wem stilvoller Horror zusagt, ist bei Laird Barron gut aufgehoben!

Laird Barron's third collection is arguably his strongest after his first. The stories here seem to link up even more so than in his others, and his particularly pulpy blend of horror, crime and even western tropes at times is stronger than ever. Highlights include The Men from Porlock, Hand of Glory and Redfield Girls, the latter of which was less connected to his over-arching mythos but worked wonderfully as a surprisingly sensitive bit of supernatural drama.