THE HAUNTED HOUSES SHE CALLS HER OWN by Gwendolyn Kiste (to be released 4/14/26 by Raw Dog Screaming Press / 168 pages)
Since her debut collection nearly 10 years ago (2017’s AND HER SMILE WILL UNTETHER THE UNIVERSE), Kiste has been raking in awards for her novels and novellas, and now delivers this second impressive set of 16 short stories.
Among my favorites are ‘The Eleven Films of Oona Cashford,’ which is written like a handout you’d get at a film festival, and deals with a cult film director and the people who go missing during Cashford film screenings. A fresh take on the cursed film subgenre, I wouldn’t mind the author expanding this into a novel. In ‘All the Hippies are Dying,’ a woman who attended the original Woodstock festival and continued to listen to the soundtrack album her whole life learns the music itself has led to a bizarre body horror. This one would make Cronenberg smile.
Other highlights include ‘Melting Point,’ where we find a woman caring for her mother in the shadow of a partial nuclear meltdown near Three Mile Island. Symbolism abounds as our protagonist (and a neighbor) meltdown in their own ways. Vampires are a hard sell for me, but it’s easy to see why Kiste won a Stoker Award for ‘The Eight People Who Murdered Me,’ about a woman who becomes one of the undead after a meeting with Dracula. Written in a diary-entry style, this was arguably the most satisfying read of the collection.
It doesn’t get stranger than the dark fantasy ‘Lost in Darkness and Distance,’ in which a reanimated (and still decapitated) Marie Antoinette meets up with Mary Shelley, who helps put her back together. This would make a fantastic segment in an anthology horror film.
All of these HAUNTED HOUSES feature women dealing with deep, dark, personal struggles, from parental fears in ‘A New Mother’s Guide to Raising an Abomination’ to an easy to identify with bullied runaway in ‘The Last Video Store on the Left,’ and there’s even a wicked take on the Black Dahlia.
HOUSES can easily be read in a sitting or two, and is another solid release from an author who continues to bring the goods.
No comments:
Post a Comment