 Adam Nevill returns in some style: Following The Reddening, one of the outstanding horror novels of 2019, was never going to be an easy task, so Adam Nevill takes the bull (or should that be a goat?) by the horns and drops the literary equivalent of the dreaded concept album. In the musical world such recordings are controversial beasts, often loved or reviled by fans in equal measure, but invariably gaining a cult following over a long period of time, via constant reappraisal, with fans locking horns over where this particular album ranks in the artist’s back-catalogue. Wyrd and Other Derelictions is such a beast, which will undoubtedly garner similar discussions in the horror world; many fans will love this curiosity, but as the beauty of concept albums is to split the critics, other readers will surely be left cold by its bleak grasp. Personally, I was a massive fan of Wyrd and Other Derelictions and would suggest that those who will enjoy this collection most are long term fans of the author who are accustomed to his descriptive style and slow pace, rather than the newbie who I would strongly advise to start elsewhere in Nevill’s outstanding back-catalogue. Who might not enjoy it? If you were bored by the eerie descriptions of the claustrophobic and encroaching forest in The Ritual, or skimmed over the decrepit descriptions of peeling wallpaper in 82 Edgehill Road from No One Gets Out Alive then this might not be the collection for you, as Wyrd beautifully amplifies these types of scenes, building long and atmospheric descriptions around precise standalone moments in time, which on other occasions might have been snapshots extracted from novels or have the potential to be reworked into longer pieces. You might ask why a collection of short stories is being compared to the concept album? This is not a normal collection in that few of the entries have genuine beginnings, middle sections, or traditional endings. They read, almost as if an unnamed narrator is describing, or walking the reader through, a horrible crime scene in which an undisclosed atrocity has occurred at some point in the past. The stories have no characters, dialogue, or conventional plots and as the literary rulebook is being effectively being thrown out the window Adam Nevill must be congratulated for creating something rather unique. A collection entirely based around mood, atmosphere, and dangerous locations is not something you come across very often. Of course, multi-author anthologies which are thematically linked are dime-a-dozen, and Stephen King occasionally released inter-linked novellas connected by theme, but few authors have the literary skill to release a collection in which all the stories are entirely made up of descriptions and it is the violence of the locations which links them. Detractors could sneer that this is a rather self-indulgent exercise, but I would argue the opposite; this is a very confident writer at the peak of his powers who firmly stamps the short story with his unique brand. Considering the strength of Nevill’s back-catalogue and track record for producing excellent short stories he is one of the very few authors who could pull such a collection off, which he does in some style. Fans may look for similarities to his existing fiction and as all of the tales are set around rural or coastal locations, with none set in cities at all, The Reddening and The Lost Girl are the two novels which spring to mind most readily. No names or locations are ever revealed and if not for the occasional mobile phone or abandoned car many of the stories could be set anywhere in time. I do not yet know if the term ‘Nevillesque’ has yet entered modern horror-speak, if not it should, as all the hallmarks you would expect in his fiction envelope these tales, from the awful descriptions of pain, torture, death, and mutilation, but presented in a manner which is akin to an aftermath, as the atrocities being described are often well in the past, with their impact continue to vibrate and linger through time with the perpetrators of the scene of the crime capering just out of vision. The mood is unrelentingly pitch black from the first page to the last. With this author I would expect nothing less. The opening story Hippocampus featured in Nevill’s debut collection Hasty for the Dark and has since featured in two further top quality anthologies. I have reviewed many of Nevill’s previous work and this is what I said back in 2017: “Hippocampus changes style entirely and is a darkly descriptive story set on an abandoned ship with no visible living beings. This is one of several stories where Nevill changes his style considerable creating an imposing atmosphere and a story which is a jolt in style from the previous one in the book. So where are the crew? Why is their abandoned uneaten food? Who has murdered whom? Death is most certainly in the air. One can almost imagine walking through the after-effects of some horrible crime or event with the reader feeling like he is intruding on something painful and that should be avoided.” Although Hippocampus was not one of my favourite entries in Hasty for the Dark, it was notably striking and an early example of a story with no characters or dialogue which sets the blueprint for all the other tales in Wyrd and Other Derelictions, with the key word being ‘derelict’ which Nevill references in the revealing endnotes. An interest in physical locations (such as Auschwitz) which have seen incredible pain and suffering, crypts, crime scenes, landscapes, ruined buildings, and places connected through a sense of abandonment is at the root of the tales. Such locations are bread and butter for horror authors and fans with an overactive imagination. When I was a kid in the mid-1980s, in the north of Scotland, we lived close to a ruined mansion called Lessendrum House which our dad claimed was haunted, a rarely used road lead to it which was well off the beaten track. At some point this road fell into disuse and when my family revisited five years ago whilst on holiday, you would never have known there was ever a path in the first place, and the house itself was unrecognisable from three decades earlier and it is forever burned into my childhood psyche along with the ghosts my father claimed inhabited the ruin. Hell, it would have made a location for a story in Wyrd! Old derelict buildings certainly do hold onto a certain level of mystique and these stories truly bring such locations to life. I would suggest reading the stories gradually, and not necessarily back-to-back, to allow the varied atmospheres from each tale to permeate fully into your thoughts. Along the way you’ll journey along broken coastlines, beaches, swimming pools, burial sites, abandoned villages, deserted holiday resorts and the final outstanding entry Holding the World in My Arms for Three Days and All Will Be Changed, which was perhaps by favourite, as it features more immediacy than many of the other stories with the reader a helpless bystander to a strange supernatural event. With Wyrd Adam Nevill is leading his readers down a literary sideroad, an experiment which many will enjoy, and more so if they appreciate that these are not traditional short stories. There are no twist endings, characters, or snappy dialogue and that will not be everybody’s cup of tea. If Wyrd and Other Derelictions is indeed Nevill’s concept album, then I am sure long-term fans are going to enjoy it tremendously and then mull over how it compares to his other work and it is sure to split the critics. Ultimately, I thought it was terrific and like all great concept albums is undoubtedly a work the artist felt he needed to get out of his system, and in releasing this Nevill’s already unmatchable back catalogue just got stronger, with many more shades of sinister. Tony Jones  Derelictions are horror stories told in ways you may not have encountered before. Something is missing from the silent places and worlds inside these stories. Something has been removed, taken flight, or been destroyed. Us. Derelictions are weird tales that tell of aftermaths and of new and liminal places. Each location has witnessed catastrophe, infernal visitations, or unearthly transformations. But across these landscapes of murder, genocide and invasion, crucial evidence remains. And it is the task of the reader to sift through ruin and ponder the residual enigma, to behold and wonder at the full horror that was visited upon mankind. Wyrd' contains seven derelictions, original tales of mystery and horror from the author of Hasty for the Dark and Some Will Not Sleep (winner of The British Fantasy Award for Best Collection).   Comments are closed.
|
Archives
May 2023
|
RSS Feed
|
|