Sorry, I couldn't help it, the alliteration was just too tempting! Poppy is Poppy Z. Brite, and Poe is Edgar Allen Poe. The two were my weekend 'ghost story' reading. Poe is always creepy good and I'd not read "The Fall of the House of Usher" before so had to give it a go. I had heard of Poppy Z. Brite and Caroline recommended her recently so I found one of her stories in a collection I brought home from the library last week. I thought it was time to try someone new. So let me start with Poppy.
"The Devil of Delery Street" appears in McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories, edited by Michael Chabon. It's a curious mix of authors ranging from Peter Straub to Margaret Atwood to David Mitchell. The author blurb tells me (I was completely unfamiliar with Poppy Z. Brite's work until I read her story) that Poppy Z. Brite began her career writing horror but (this collection was published in 2004 by the way) has branched out to writing novels and stories set in the New Orleans restaurant world. The fictional family that the story is about appears in that other work.
The story feels to me like a cross between The Exorcist and The Lovely Bones, though it doesn't have the same heaviness or darkness of either. It's a story that could easily appear in any other collection despite the use of the supernatural. There are lots of hints that are perhaps meant as red herrings as some of the details don't actually go anywhere once they are introduced into the story. Maybe they are meant as mood setting or atmosphere, or maybe I missed some subtle nuance. The story is essentially about a haunting, a rather banal one really. Once again it has to do with a teen age girl, which makes me think that youth/children somehow are able to 'channel' spirits in ways that jaded adults cannot. They have just the sort of naivety or pureness to bring on weird occurrences that over time and with a little experience seem to just fade away or happen to adults.
The time is the 1970s and the family Brite writes about is a tight knit Catholic Irish-Italian family. Melly's younger sister has recently died from leukemia. Alone in her bedroom she begins hearing the strangest scratching noises that she puts down to mice. She raps on the wall hoping to scare them but strangely something raps back exactly the same as she had. And even stranger, at a family gathering on a special Saint's Day a crucifix that had been on an altar flew off and attached itself to her back. Normally you would assume the family would be freaked out, but her siblings try and egg on the spirit to do more 'tricks'. As strangely as the ghost arrives it disappears, too. It's a curious story, verging on the banal almost, though the ending is actually quite nice and sweet in its own way. It makes you wonder if strange things like this actually do happen.
Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" is wonderfully creepy, very vivid in the telling. It's a classic ghost story, or rather haunted house (haunted family?) story. Usher is both a family name and the family seat of the Ushers. The house is a great gloomy mansion handed down over the years to each new heir and only Roderick and his sister Madeline remain.
I've always wondered if this is true or something that you just read about in stories. Were there ever truly occasions where someone was buried but a string was in some way rigged to the inside of the casket and attached to a bell above ground, which could be rung if the deceased was not really deceased but buried alive? Well, something similar happens in this story. The unnamed narrator knew Roderick as a child but the two have long lived in distant parts of the country. His friend, ill now, has invited him to come for a visit.
The house is strange, his friend Roderick is strange--much changed since their early days together--wan and cadaverous. He discovers that Roderick and Madeline are twins and that she suffers too from some sort of illness which causes her to fall into these strange fits where she appears dead. Her most recent fits seems to be the real thing, however. The two carry her to the family crypt where Roderick says she must remain for two weeks to make sure she is really dead before actually burying her.
Lots of spooky things happen in this story. Inside the house, outside the house. Glowing lights and awful storms. Roderick has a love of literature and the narrator reads to him a story of a knight slaying a dragon which causes horrible vivid reactions to the characters and even the house itself seems to take on a life of its own. As a matter of fact the house is almost one of the main characters. This is a pitch perfect Gothic story with all the right elements, vivid descriptions, sickly characters, an electrifying atmosphere . . . It reminds me so much of Shirley Jackson's work she must surely have been inspired by Poe. Poe is truly as good as it gets when it comes to ghost stories. This is going straight into my repertoire of favorites. If you want just one story to read for the season, make it one by Poe.
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My latest (from the Sept. 22 issue) New Yorker story is "Jack, July" by Victor Lodato. I have to confess. As I was reading, my reaction was a little visceral. One of intense dislike. I almost stopped reading. Not because it is not a good story or not well written. It is both. On reflection, I am glad I kept going (the idea behind my weekly short stories is to broaden my horizons--no matter the subject or style--to get a taste of something that is perhaps new and different). What I found so hard to take was the subject of the story.
Jack is a twenty-ish guy in Tucson. It's the Fourth of July and he is a meth user. The story follows him and his thoughts over the course of the day as he essentially goes in search of a hit. He has no money, he's practically going into withdrawal. Nasty sorts of things happen to him and he himself is a little nasty. But I have to say, there is still, something maybe a little sympathetic about him, even as I cringe to think of how I would react if he came begging money from me.
I just listened to a lecture today about Art and Spirituality and the professor who spoke talked about how art is meant to make us more empathetic and compassionate. It made me think of this story and how not very compassionate I was feeling about Jack. Then I had to rethink it all over again. Isn't it funny (and wonderful) how stories can shape us, or at least make us think a little differently? The beauty of reading. I think this might not be my favorite story of the year, but I certainly appreciate it more now than I did this morning. You can check out the author's Q&A here.