| Author | Message | ||
     Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243 |
Sanity and Other Delusions by Gary Fry PS Publishing 2007  Beggars Belief An ingenious story of alcoholism within a nucelar famly --- and a Ligottian Corporate Horror and its use of tramps outside its 'flee-infested' factories. As with much modern horror, "complete with static". An author "as a one person steering group", at the height of his powers. I simply love the title of the overall book. I am not reading the Stephen Volk intro until I've reviewed and gestalted all the stories. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.20.31.211 |
It finally turned up, then. Grand. Thanks for comments, both made and to come . . . | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243 |
The Indelible Strain of Company Politically incorrect is one thing. Unpolitically correct is another. But this is both! Hilarious but disturbing -- with an original monster of truly frightening proportions (not a mere zombie or werewolf or oher horror stereotype), but a real monster -- Woman, Stanley. Woman. -- seeking scatologically fishy sex from a binged-out third-person monologuist (Cf the inebriated third-person monologuist in the previous story). Combining M.R.-Jamesian twin beds, Aickmanesque Narrowboats and Ligottian mannequins (and a wonderfully redolent pub/inn of recursive mis-memory), this is a masterpiece right up my back-canal. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.232.169 |
Too much information, Des. And I don't mean about the story.  | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.20.31.211 |
No need to hammer it home . . . | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243 |
Three miles up. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.177.115.122 |
It finally turned up, then. Grand. So let's get this right. You've sent a grand to Des. It's turned up. Des is giving you positive reviews. Hmmm... | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243 |
There was an original delay in the book because Amazon couldn't obtain it for me. So Gary was saying 'Grand' that I have now managed to buy it in the end. BTw, I only normally buy books that I have an instinct I'm going to enjoy! Well, of course.  | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.20.31.211 |
Don't try and talk your way out of it, Des. The game's up. It's a fair cop. We're busted. Nemonymousgate, they'll call it. It's that serious. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243 |
After the last story - fishy-watergate. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.20.31.211 |
We're traitors of the first water, certainly. We're going to end up in the nick, son! | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243 |
No Oil Painting Another third-person 'monologue' (one in adoescent angst, finding his feet as a person mentally and physically, in relationship with his parents) - and there is more slurred drunken speech as in the previous story but here it takes on a more serious significance (almost speaking in tongues?) and, again, a (cleaners?) face at a hotel window that shouldn't be there... Although this story is somewhat contrived in its gathering of images of self-worth and bodily image (as an ancient and modern phenomenon regarding internet forum avatars, digital photography, oil painting...), it is also a very effective traditional ghost story - indeed one I can imagine written by May Sinclair: "People crave recognition from others, and when they can't manage that, they linger on." A very positive comparison, for me. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243 |
It Can Also End At Home All the stories so far have been male third-person monologue-type rites-of-passage, this being no exception - a story concerning the Machinations of Ebay, Book Collecting, Suspected Cancer, Existential Angst, the Serendipitous Shards of Synchronised Truth & Fiction, and the Absurdity of Self-Coached Paranoia. I related to it wholly with both amusement and worry! So it must have worked. Except I'm not a Male Chauvinist (Cf. 'The Indelible Strain of Company') who would congratulate himself on surviving a Wife! | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243 |
The Familial "the situation grew wrought" And so it did, in more ways than one. And fraught. A brilliant little phrase. And a substantial R.Oliver/R. Aickman like story, but more what (after reading three Fry collections (and just another story to go in this one)) is essentially Fryesque than anything else. It is as if Richard, the I-narrator, (but still a rite-of-passage-by-male-monologue like the other stories in this book so far) is developing as an adolescent-towards-adult character, one with angst and sensitivity as well as crude masculine needs; meanwhile Fry (quite unconnectedly and differently) is this I-narrator's head-lease creator and has also developed as a fine mature writer, honing out a few rough edges, like moulding a digital photograph here and there, mysterious shapes, testing, teasing, putting the fiction in certain lights, certain ambiances, to see how it ticks, to see how the reader (a few rungs down the pecking-order of leases in the reading-chain) reacts .... monstrous shadows and echoes of painful memories..... A story I really really liked. An essential Fry. A catharsis of 'No Oil Painting'. The pitiful Mum. The harmless Mum who only harms so things can stay harmless. Also this story (like the previous ones) has some more slurred drunken speech. A leitmotif of this book? Where have all the knives gone? Long time passing. (A few faces in windows here, though, like 'World Wide Web' book). I fear I shall have nightmares about Albert Mock and that shop in Bruges. The imp of the perverse disguised as two discommoding dads joined at the boozy-hip. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243 |
Projecting Malice I had forgotten till now that this collection has a sub-title: "Tales of Psychological Horror". In many ways this is a misdescription for the book as a whole. However, 'Projecting Malice' fits the bill. Indeed, 'Sanity and other Delusions', although a great eye-catcher of a title, is another possible misdescription. Except it is good for 'Projecting Malice'. This story has echoes of 'The Sunken Garden'. The solitary and detached bungalow has walls (at one point with menstrual aperture) with noisy neighbours behind them! It is another male third-person monologue, again someone who seems to drink too much - now defintely this book's leitmotif! The bungalow is being given a make-over (like the mother in 'No Oil Painting') - and here we don't only have visual images but auditory ones too that penetrate the mask of sanity. One of these is momentarily called an 'audition' somewhere in the story. Indeed, it is as if this is a dress rehearsal, an on-the-couch interview for the job of psycho-analysing the whole book retrospectively, where headings and titles take on a new force by what came since they were seen there by the lower-rung reader. The apparent weak trite ending of this story is consequently strengthened - i.e. this is not going to be just an ordinary axe-murder (or sledge-hammer one) but a vast cropping of imagery made to fit in with a kaleidoscope of delusions-in-hindsight. This book beggars belief. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243 |
A marital sledge-hammer murder. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.20.31.211 |
Thanks, Des. Most gratifying. I'd say more, but you never know who might be reading. Delusional? Me? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243 |
Gary, you should say whatever you want to say. No more, no less. As you already do in your fiction. I think I must be becoming a Fry specialist by now! What haven't I read yet? I have just read Volk's intro to 'Sanity'. And I like it a lot. Rings true with me. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.20.31.211 |
Well, you've read about 32 stories. I've written 112. Plus four novels. The House of Canted Steps will be released next year from PS Publishing. Excited about that, especially since it's the novel of the four which is pitched in the areas you appear to have found most satisfying: 'The Familial' territory, definitely. In the meanwhile, there's a far more commercial and playful novella in House on the Borderlands, the free BFS book last year. And Pendragon Press will publish a novella next year called 'The Invisible Architect of Psychopathy', which is just about as twisted as my stuff gets. Also . . . well, I'll email you. |