 The strangeness, the horror, the absolute delicious dread that builds through each story is earned from the first perfect sentence and carried through to the conclusion. All That’s Lost: A Collection of Stories by Ray Cluley 2022 Black Shuck Books 365 pgs. I realized, quite early on in Ray Cluley’s “The Final Girl’s Daughter”, that it was something more than just another slasher exploration. It was the second-to-last story from his 2022 collection All That’s Lost, but the first one I read. I thought the title spelled the story out, and that I could skim through some easy slasher carnage to learn Cluley’s style. I thought I knew what path the story would take, even the left turns that a clever author would use to subvert expectations. I mean, I do know the Final Girl tropes. I’m also familiar with how those tropes have been inverted, exploded, and expanded by horror writers since the curveball of Scream. I thought I’d be reading a story about masked violence, trauma, and grief. I thought it would be a story that would inevitably twist as it ended, because these stories always do. And that kind of happened. But it also didn’t, which was when I really began to enjoy myself. Cluley’s story concerns the long aftermath of a massacre, which is familiar territory for avid horror fans these days. It centers on two adults who bear hideous scars both physical and mental. Asides from brief respites, their lives have mostly been car crashes since their fateful night. The story begins as Sally stops in at the garage where fellow survivor Richard works to inform him that she’s going back to the farm where it all happened. And what comes next certainly deals with trauma and grief. It re-tells the events in all the grisly details. And it involves a showdown close to the end. However, there’s more to the story, and not just because of the daughter’s presence. Richard and Sally are not pawns. They are not there to contrive a ‘gotcha’ moment or a sick meta-twist. There’s respect and admiration and love for these characters that shines through the writing because Cluley convinces us that they deserve it: “…He started wiping his hands and arms with the rag from his back pocket, saw how it cleaned up his scars, and stopped. He limped towards her. She met him halfway to save him the bother.” They have agency throughout the story, actions that come from places other than grief, reactions and thoughts that aren’t a result of the corn-fed boogeyman that irrevocably changed their lives and killed their friends. The conclusion is grisly, sad, tender, and even a little kind. The whole story is completely unexpected despite feeling familiar. It’s scary in a way that makes so much sense. I hoped that the other stories would offer similar surprises and was not disappointed. Each of these seventeen stories, going back all to 2016, easily justify their existence. Each one is its own world. There are monsters galore, human and otherwise, but also mental breaks, seismic shifts in reality, random violence, folkloric fulfillment, and horrific revenge, all brought to the page through characters who don’t know what kind of story they’re trying to live through. Cluley’s style is at once precise and lyrical. It easily lures you in even as he builds up the dread. The characters are centered in the stories and thankfully get time to breathe. He’s almost indulgent with his dialogue, but I appreciate that. Characters talk and explain and whine and complain and tease and laugh throughout. They say the wrong thing, they excuse themselves, they speak their truths. Backstories and history are there to increase the force of the narrative instead of simply providing context. You’re going to get to know these characters and feel along with them. An additional strength is that Cluley does the necessary work to set scenes so there’s no confusion or questioning. His sense of place, the importance of location—I’m guessing thanks to first-hand experience coupled with diligent research—provides each story with its own reality. The African wildlife reserve in “Painted Wolves”, a cinderblock cattle shed in the found-footage horror “6/6”, an Indian ship-breaking yard in “Steel Bodies”, and even Martha’s Vineyard both during and after the filming of JAWS in “The Wrong Shark” are places of nightmare, but they’re also vital to the stories. The details and descriptions make you want to spend time in these places before the characters even do anything. Finally, these stories don’t cheat. There’s no weird-for-weird sake — though there’s plenty of strangeness on display. There’s no hallucinatory fever-dreams that introduce dues ex machina endings or left-field reveals that torpedo the whole story. The strangeness, the horror, the absolute delicious dread that builds through each story is earned from the first perfect sentence and carried through to the conclusion. It’s such an enjoyable experience that, once I finished my first reading of “The Final Girl’s Daughter”, I went and started at the beginning of the collection just so I knew I wouldn’t miss anything. ALL THAT’S LOST- A COLLECTION OF STORIES BY RAY CLULEY "There's a tiny gap between the stories we tell ourselves and those we tell others and that's where you'll find the truth." All That's Lost is the second collection from award-winning horror writer Ray Cluley, bringing together 17 stories exploring the haunted, the strange, and the uncanny. Lose yourself in the darkness here, and find yourself changed... Justin Allec I'm a husband and father of three young boys based in Northwestern Ontario, Canada. Since first reading R.L. Stein and Christopher Pike when I was young, I have been invested in the horror genre. After a lifetime of enjoying horror in all its forms, I decided to attempt to contribute my own stories and after a few years of work, I now proudly call myself a novice horror writer. I have my first short story pending publication with Ghost Orchid Press, and I have received an Ontario Arts Council grant to support my effort to produce a short story collection. I also review films for Thunder Bay's Terror in the Bay Film Festival. I'm interested in reviewing new horror writing as a way to help support other novice writers and learn a thing or two. All-time Favorite Horror Books: Robert Chambers, The King in Yellow Clive Barker, The Damnation Game William Peter Blatty, Legion Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory Dan Simmons, The Terror Joe Hill, Horns Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale Robert R. MaCammon, Boy's Life Catriona Ward, Sundial ...and if I had to pick only one Stephen King book, it'd be Night Shift. Facebook: Justin Allec Twitter: @justinallec807 check out today's other horror book below the heart and soul of horror book review websitesComments are closed.
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