Ghosts and Grisly Things [Paperback]

The two vaguely positive reader reviews preceding this one just don't come close to doing justice to this book. It appears that the extraordinary, though often subtle, power of this collection of stories has eluded both reviewers. Furthermore, despite their claims to the contrary, there are no tales within concerned with vampires, classic horror creatures, or necrophilia (which one reviewer mistakenly claims to be the subject of "Through the Walls").

It's fair to say that many readers, especially those only used to very straightforward, more mainstream horror writers like Dean Koontz or Stephen King, may not get the full impact of a typical Campbell tale on the first reading. Campbell's style is unique, natural, and evocative--though free of the pretentious, heavy-handed flourishes that some writers seemingly confuse for a style. His technique can also be extremely subtle. Readers accustomed to the more in-your-face attempts at shock that pepper mainstream fiction might not even pick up on some of the more suggested elements in his work.

Campbell is not a writer who heaps redundant detail upon the reader. He often says much in just a few words--thus igniting the reader's imagination, rather than swamping it with excess and irrelevancies. His writing frequently captures the elusive and ambiguous feel of nightmares. The horror of his tales never feels obvious or familiar, unlike the stock villains and unimaginative ghoulies that too much modern horror writing relies on. His demons are enigmatic; they arise inexplicably, like incarnations of the ingrained violence or decay of a haunted landscape, or the manifestations of one's worst fears. His imagery is often grotesque, and sometimes stomach-churningly gruesome, but always conveyed with the flair of a master artist: capturing images through an elegant prose as fluid as the strokes of an Impressionist painter, rather than heaping overheated writing upon itself in some desperate effort to summon a response in the reader.

At the same time, Campbell's fiction is rooted in a thoroughly convincing and unsentimental realism. His characters and their relationships, and his settings, from run-down urban backstreets to sunny and remote countryside, ring true in a manner horror fiction rarely even aspires to. Only once such a solid foundation has been established does the nightmarish begin to intrude, as it does with such unnerving inevitability throughout Campbell's work. Indeed, nobody--with the possible exceptions of such noteworthy talents as Robert Aickman and M. John Harrison--rivals Campbell at blurring the lines between finely drawn reality and the frighteningly twisted logic, dread-filled atmosphere, and horrific, indelible imagery of nightmare.

GHOSTS AND GRISLY THINGS offers a number of excellently crafted tales that recall Campbell's best. Some of its best tales are "Missed Connection", "Root Cause", "The Alternative", "Looking Out", "Between the Floors", "The Sneering", and "Welcomeland": a selection outstanding not just in its diversity and the brilliance of individual tales therein, but as a demonstration of the range and power of which the best horror fiction is capable. If tales like those listed above fail to move, disturb, or haunt a reader, I'd submit that the problem is not with the writing at all, but with the reader. Meanwhile, a few stories, such as "Where They Lived" and "McGonagall in the Head", balance the darkness of their visions with an equally black humor.

That's not to say I think the entire collection is flawless. As stated earlier I don't think GHOSTS AND GRISLY THINGS packs the wallop of Campbell's best fiction collections. There's a couple of fairly lightweight pieces here, particularly "Going Under" and "A Street Was Chosen"--though the latter successfully invokes the feel of a playfully mean-spirited cartoon by Charles Addams or Edward Gorey. My primary gripe is probably with the last entry, the novella "Ra*e", which, though a fine, chilling tale, ranks as one of the least impressive works I've read by him. "Ra*e" reads like one of Campbell's less successful stabs at a more mainstream market for thriller/serial killer fiction, which I think is a major step down for a writer of his ability. But nonetheless, even the weakest material here is of a quality rarely matched in horror writing in general.

So overall this book is a must-read work of modern horror fiction. It also makes a fine starting point for anyone yet to read Campbell's work. Keep in mind, if you merely seek escapist thrills and cheap shocks: you need not look into this book or anything else written by Ramsey Campbell. However, if you're after well crafted stories that demonstrate how vital, imaginative, and powerful horror fiction can be, tales that will stay with you after you've read them, then you may thank yourself for checking out GHOSTS AND GRISLY THINGS.

I sometimes wonder where books get their titles. In this case, I have to lay the blame on some copy editor at Tor who hadn't even bothered reading the manuscript, or at best skimmed it a tad. There's the odd ghost in this collection of stories, and a grisly thing or two, but anyone who's read Ramsey Campbell before should be well aware by now that the horror which Campbell makes his stock in trade has far less to do with such external fear-inducing stimuli. Stephen King writes in the opening pages of Cujo about how our fears change as we grow older, how the monster in the closet becomes the horror of not knowing how you're going to pay the rent on time. Within that perspective, Campbell is very much an adult horror writer; while his characters find themselves in widely disparate situations doing widely disparate things, the horrors that plague them are usually those who invoke the same fear as not knowing whence the rent check. And perhaps this is why Campbell has yet to find the audience in America that King and his monsters or Koontz and his aliens have found. When the monster is something other than the average Joe (even if he's a serial killer or some other damaged version of humanity, he's still "other"), there's a cushion of safety against which the reader can lean. When the monster is a guy on a cell phone ("Going Under"), a return to one's hometown ("Welcomeland"), or the banal passengers you're stuck with on the train ("Missed Connection"), you can't help but identify. We've all been there and done that.

Campbell is probably better known as a novelist, but he's published a number of collections of top-quality short stories. Add this one to the list. He's the grand master of writing the type of horror that has fueled the recent careers of such lights as Kathe Koja, Lucius Shepard, and Patrick McGrath; fans of such writers should have no problems glomming onto what Campbell's doing, and those few who haven't discovered him yet deserve to. ****

For example, one story ends with a guy giving out his ex wife's
address to a very non scary, but annoying, couple so that they can deliver some pictures. Oh but the ex told him not to! 0o0o0o0o scaaaaaaaary!

I bought this book because I was impressed by one of the stories, "Going Under", which I read in a horror anthology. A fat guy trampling a crowd of people isn't too scary, but I found it extremely funny and dark.

Anyway, if you like to be scared, and you're under the age of 50, this book might not be for you.