BEAUTIFUL/GROTESQUE EDITED BY SAM RICHARD

7/5/2021

Beautiful/Grotesque is a collection of five stories by Roland Blackburn, Jo Quenell, Katy Michelle Quinn, Joanna Koch and Sam Richard. All five have work published by Weirdpunk Books, which has also published the collection. The theme is quite simply to interpret the Beautiful/Grotesque theme, and as a result the five stories take different paths.

With most anthologies, you expect some stories to hit the mark and a few to maybe miss it in terms of personal taste when it comes to style and content. It’s the nature of collections. When you’re dealing with a very limited number of stories, you end up hoping they all land with something of an on-target thud, and to some extent Beautiful/Grotesque managed it for me.

God of the Silvered Halls by Roland Blackburn is set in a mortuary. When a mysterious cadaver comes in, a bisected woman probably hit by a train, Patience becomes mesmerised by her tattoo. The calligraphic etching turns out to be a recipe, and unable to resist, Patience decides to cook it up. The outcome sets her on a path which enables her to discover some of her victim’s dark secret. It’s a well written tale, and while the narrative arc is pretty obvious, it still delivers a well-told tale.

Threnody by Jo Quenell starts with a singer practising her piece for a funeral. It creates a mood of expectation and reluctance, a suffocating mood which for reasons unknown seems to stifle any positivity from Lydia, the singer. As the tale is woven, so the reader is drawn into an emotional maze which is both challenging and chilling in equal measure. I first came across Jo Quenell when reading The Mud Ballad, which I loved. This is very different, but still has the intensity of her novella. For me, it was the story of the collection.

The Queen of the Select by Katy Michelle Quinn is themed around a grand and opulent event which transpires to be not as grand and opulent as it appears. Gritty, dirty and vicious, it flicks between a few points of view to reveal a story heavy with savagery. Well crafted and mesmerising in parts, it occasionally staggers a little towards the farcical, but manages to right itself before stepping over the line.

Swammord by Joanna Koch will be, for many, a bit of a marmite story. Indeed, some readers may well veer from love to hate or vice versa during the story itself. It’s bold and challenging, a juxtaposition of the real and surreal, with a few glances towards the culture of yesteryear. My first impression wasn’t great, mainly because I made a wrong assumption early on, but as the story started to weave into a complex tapestry of emotional turmoil I became more invested. By its conclusion, I realised it was a journey I was happy to have undertaken.

The collection closes with The Fruit of a Barren Tree by Sam Richard. It’s a tale rich with regret, remorse and ultimately hope. From a position of suicide, we follow what feels like a story of transformation to a state of acceptance, of a kind! It’s an emotionally charged episode, which although pretty strange feels somehow normal.
All in all, Beautiful/Grotesque is a collection of well crafted tales which all address, in some small way, the title and its delightful paradox.

Five authors of strange fiction, Roland Blackburn (Seventeen Names For Skin), Jo Quenell (The Mud Ballad), Katy Michelle Quinn (Winnie), Joanna Koch (The Wingspan of Severed Hands), and Sam Richard (Sabbath of the Fox-Devils) each bring you their own unique vision of the macabre and the glorious violently colliding. From full-on hardcore horror to decadently surreal nightmares, and noir-fueled psychosis, to an eerie meditation on grief, and familial quiet horror, Beautiful/Grotesque guides us through the murky waters where the monstrous and the breathtaking meet.
They are all beautiful. They are all grotesque.

Peter Caffrey is a writer of tales with an absurdist bent. A born and bred Londoner, he currently lives in the middle of nowhere with nothing but the North Sea and fog for company. Introduced to horror as a small child by a Mother who was too scared to watch films on her own, he has a fondness for demonic possession, crucifixion and impalements. His novels, The Devil’s Hairball and Whores Versus Sex Robots are available from Amazon. He drinks too much, exercise too little and is unlikely to change.

http://petercaffrey.com