BP Looks at Books

For Issue #58, Jan. 2012

By A.M. Stickel

          Daring Greg Dixon has put out his second PARADIGMS OF SUFFERING collection, the most recent subtitled: DIG THE KNIFE DEEPER. And this time he means business. He admits being the designer of the book’s colorful cover art that does more than hint: it hollers! A man in a white shirt and tie sits at a table with an assortment of cutlery. He holds in his left hand the sharp knife with which he has removed his own grimacing head. The back cover displays the bottom half of (the same man’s?) severed arm protruding from a sandwich of sorts with condiments to one side (no ketchup needed). The interior content delivers on the cover’s gory promise with three longish pieces: “Worked to Death,” “The Family that Preys Together,” and “Tracking Carrie (Next Day Delivery).” Nonconformists do not survive long in Dixon’s version of society.

          “Worked to Death,” while loaded with irony, is a somewhat repetitive indictment of modern, white-collar business. The monotony of a hapless worker’s existence ends in a bloody nightmare that would do justice to the redoubtable director Rob Zombie himself. Does this reflect how so many of us still tied to the workplace have morphed into members of the Living Dead community?

          After attacking the curse of single blessedness, Dixon moves on to the conflict between blue collar criminals (led by “the East Massilon Marauder”) and an enterprising community of predators (typified by the family of “McCluster’s Meat Market”). The contrast between the overconfident but sloppy criminal and the ultra-tidy family driven by primal hunger almost elicits sympathy for the thief’s fate.

          “Tracking Carrie (Next Day Delivery)” is less about the self-abusive victim of parental neglect and failed relationships—“stranded on an open highway of misery”—than about her trio of thoroughly depraved, would-be ‘saviors.’ She is more dimwitted than she ought to be to make the story believable. As Carrie trusts the wrong people and explores her mad customer’s house, she reminds me of all the stupid things directors and writers make women do in horror films, like sobbing loudly as they try to run and hide from monstrous villains. [Ever notice how they leave their car windows rolled down, can’t fit their keys in the ignition, and drive cars that won’t start even when they finally get the key in?] But “Tracking…” in its own warped way does enforce the message about selfishness overcoming the instinct for self-preservation.

          For those with a strong stomach and willing to dig deeper, the ISBN of this Visions Given Life book is 9780984246830. Contact Dixon at gregndixon@hotmail.com; he again earns 2 BP Black Roses.

          One of BP’s contributing authors, Tara Fox Hall (in BP #57 with “Face Recognition”), has a moody piece called “The Origin of Fear” in the anthology SPELLBOUND 2011 (ISBN 9781612352305). The pursuit of thesis material lands four college pals on haunted Latham’s Landing. They soon find themselves in deep doodoo.

Among the nine authors, Walt Trizna (in BP #44 with “Side Affects”) scares us silly with his “Mansion of Nightmares” guarded by the ghostly-turned-ghastly beauty in a portrait. John Mecom’s “Room 1309.5” (on the 13^th floor of Black Castle Casino!) is a tale of ruin and revenge in today’s business world, but based on a familiar E.A. Poe story. John Steiner’s “Half Seen, Half Hidden” takes nine strangers with a common bond by van to their woodsy doom. Other stories include: “Uncle Vernon,” “Spellbound at Midnight,” “Ghost Taxi,” and “Telltale Signs.” These four, while still having supernatural elements, are lightweight horror—emphasizing romance, history, and mystery.

Cover artist Caroline Andrus shows us a pair of young lovers, fully clothed, faces obscured by long hair, next to a cruciform tombstone. The editorial lineup is impressive, and they did a great job with the story summaries, both inside and on the back cover. They did not catch every typo, though, perhaps relying on the authors themselves to do so. To learn about the publisher, Mélange Books LLC (White Bear Lake, MN 55110), visit www.melange-books.com. This high quality read deserves 3 BP Black Roses.

Lastly, anyone interested in my fairytale for adults, ALAT, should contact me (not Booklocker) directly. See the guidelines page at www.blackpetals.net for my address and e-mail. Your friendly editor is currently awaiting the final art for a second book, NEXT STOP: NAPPER’S HOLLER. Most of the stories have appeared in BP and Yellow Mama, but there will be new material, including Deadeye’s illustrations.