Creepy Reads Review: My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me

May's Creepy Reads Review is of a collection of short stories. My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me presents forty new fairy tales written by contemporary writers. The name of this compelling anthology is from one of the short stories in it and I think it is a good hint for the readers about how creepy this anthology is.

This book is edited by Kate Bernheimer and the foreword is written by Gregory Maguire, the author of Wicked. The collection is dedicated to Angela Carter, one of my favorite writers. Her novels and short stories play with perverse, fairy tales, grotesque, and many other things goth readers will enjoy. Especially her collection of short stories The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, which is a collection of retold fairy tales and it is probably the reason why My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me is dedicated to Carter. I highly recommend reading both of these collections.

I read My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me while I was in the United States and I was intrigued by one thing. When I would mention I was reading these contemporary fairy tales people were always interested and they would not really know much about fairy tales or more precisely about their history. Even one woman who was a teacher did not know that the original fairy tales were not for children but for adults. The folklore from previous centuries was filled with eroticism, horror, and violence. The stories were told after a hard day of work in a situation there was no much other entertainment.

From the back of the book

People often say the stories Brothers Grimm collected were violent and there was much gore but according to research on folklore, the brothers actually toned down those stories while they were gathering them around the rural areas. All stories in this collection are not remakes of Grimms' fairy tales. Neil Gaiman has retold The Odyssey from Ancient Greece in his story Orange. Other writers were inspired by Russian folklore and others by Vietnamese, Japanese, and Mexican folklore.

Since there are forty stories I am not going to talk about all of them. I am only going to mention a couple. Though first I must say that you do not have to know the stories that the writers used as inspiration. You can just enjoy the stories as they are but of coarse knowing about folklore and fairy tales some basic things like the usual structure and narrative conventions is probably going to bring more to your reading experience of My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me. Even if you are not familiar with the traditions behind a story, in the end of every tale in this book there is afterwords by the author or in some cases a translator or the editor, and those afterwords bring more light to the choices the author made and why the story is like it is. Very handy, I must say!

Close-up: some of the writers

Some stories in this anthology I liked very much, some not so much but I could still appreciate the quality and the use of literary traditions in those stories too. The Warm Mouth by Joyelle McSweeney is a good example of the stories that bring back the violence and gore to fairy tale. The Warm Mouth also honors the importance of repetition in old stories, and so does The Swan Brothers by Shelley Jackson. Jackson's novella is divided into little fractions that have titles like "The Performance Artist Dreams" and "The Youngest Brother's Lover". The world of the story is shielded and at first it is hard to understand what actually is happening, since the characters and their actions keep changing like in a feverish dream.

My favorite stories were Baba Iaga and the Pelican Child by Joy Williams, With Hair of Hand-Spun Gold by Neil LaBute, and The Mermaid in the Tree by Katherine Vaz:

Baba Yaga is a character from Russian folklore, a cannibal witch who lives in a creepy cottage that moves around with chicken legs. In Joy Williams' story this Baba Iaga is not representing the forces of evil, as she usually does and the story has that eerie atmosphere that fairy tales usually have.

With Hair of Hand-Spun Gold is a remake of the story of Rumplestiltskin. In the original story Rumplestiltskin is this fairy creature who can spun gold from straws and has a habit of trying to get other people's firstborns. Neil LaBute's story is a "realistic" story, which means it is situated in a world that has no magic and the characters are quite normal people like us. The narrator is this story's Rumplestiltskin but instead of being a weirdo after other people's children he is actually taking a revenge on his former mistress. The anger and thirst of revenge are deliciously presented in the narration!

The Mermaid in the Tree starts with these words: "Desiree, the child bride, and her sister Miranda had gone grave robbing for a wedding gown." Need I say more? This is a twisted, creepy, and extremely well written story after H. C. Andersen's The Little Mermaid. I loved it and found it very inspiring.

These stories are perfect to read in the evening before going to sleep. I at least had some very interesting dreams after some of the tales! I bought my copy in London, Tate Modern's museum shop. This anthology was published by Penguin Books and you can get a brand new copy of your own for approximately 15 USD.

Creepy Reads Review: Tim Burton's The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories

The first post in March is a Creepy Reads Review. It is about Tim Burton's collection of stories called The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories. Some of the stories are just one sentence and every story is with illustrations. Almost all stories are in a form of a poem, with rhymes and cute yet disturbing contents. Tim Burton has both written and illustrated the book. It was first published in UK year 1998 but my edition is a paperback printed 2005. I got it from a friend since I have such twisted sense of humor and such motherly instincts. ;)

Cute meets creepy in about all Burton's productions, as you probably know. He has made many many movies that goths hold dear, like Sleepy Hollow, The Nightmare Before Christmas and so on. I do some research on the authors and illustrators whose work I present in my reviews but I do not want to write their biography or anything. I wish to concentrate on the actual book. This is partly because even though a work that is reviewed is creepy and goth-y, the author of it might not be that goth-y and their other works might not be goth-y at all.

When I started to read the collection my first thought was "oh my, these stories are quite grotesque!" PI guess this partly happened because I am writing my master's thesis of grotesque and for the last four months I have have been reading research on the subject. Someone might say that I see grotesque in places it should not be! Even though I might be extra well tuned for grotesque, I still regard my perception reliable and that this book of Burton is grotesque in a most delightful way. The grotesqueness is the biggest reason why I think this collection of stories is suitable for Creepy Reads Review.

Some of the poems in Burton's collection of stories are really sad yet there is a hint of humor that corrupts the poem and makes it rather grotesque, like in the previous photo a story of a boy with nails in his eyes. The illustration has more gore than most of the pictures but it still provokes to laugh.

Instead of being that funny, some of the stories are just disturbingly bizarre, like "The Girl Who Turned into a Bed". Unmentioned narrating voice tells about a girl who starts to turn into a bed after picking some plants, her head swells and her organs became a mattress. Best of all is the last comment on the tragic metamorphosis:

It was so terribly strange 

that I started to weep. 

But at least after that

I had a nice place to sleep.

The narrating voice and the whole event gets really grotesque thanks to this practical and heartless comment. It takes the whole story over the top, making it extreme.

The title poem of the little Oyster Boy reflects well the rest of the collection. Oyster Boy is just a victim, a boy who was born being half oyster, half human. His parents resent him, their sex life dies and in the end his father eats him since this was proposed by a doctor:

The doctor diagnosed,

"I can't be sure,

but the cause of the problem may also be the cure.

They say oysters improve your sexual powers.

Perhaps eating your son

would help you do it for hours!"

Then there is a scene of burial that is banalized by the parents and the narrator. The parents hardly grief in front of the remains of their child and decide they'll try to get another, hopefully normal child.

Most of the characters, or should I say subjects of the poems, are sad little kids who are shun by others. Of coarse almost equal amount of the kids are someway twisted, a bit devilish children. They too often encounter a pathetic demise.

I personally think that "Jimmy, the Hideous Penguin Boy" is the most heart-breaking tale in Burton's collection, though at the same time it brought a little distressed smirk on my face when I read it. That is typical for grotesque stories, they make people laugh unwillingly, little disoriented. I believe the reason why Jimmy makes me smile awkwardly is because it is in the same collection with the more humoristic poems. I get this horizon of expectation, I anticipate it to be funny but it turns out to be just sad and disturbing. The most awful thing about it is that the poor little Jimmy does not even get a proper rhyme!

Jimmy, the Hideous Penguin Boy

"My name is Jimmy,

but my friends just call me

'the hideous penguin boy.'"

That's it, the whole poem! And beside it is this really depressing picture of little Jimmy. Need I say that I love this story? It gets a strong reaction and shows how reading starts to mold the readers expectations.

Another one of my favorites is "Mummy Boy", which is one of the longest poems. It tells the story of a boy who is a mummy, although his parents are normal people. He is not that nice to other people and is therefore shunned out but in the end he finds a mummy dog to be his friend. Unfortunately on a walk with the dog Mummy Boy is mistaken as a piñata with tragic consequences.

As I have mentioned in the beginning, I have done research on grotesque and I can say with some conviction that this collection of stories in the form of poetry is grotesque. The collection is quick to read but still very entertaining. Grotesque has a tendency to crawl under reader's skin, making the reading experience delightful yet disturbing.

There are 23 stories in The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories and I have referred to only five so there are plenty of stories to be discovered, if you get your hands on a paperback like mine or another edition!

Creepy Reads Review: The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman

Today I am going to write about Neil Gaiman's book, or a new fairy tale, The Sleeper and the Spindle, which I found in the department of children's books in Tate Modern's museum shop. I must say that when I was in London, the museum shop of Tate Modern was the best book store I visited.

Many of you certainly know Neil Gaiman's works, the more familiar ones are perhaps The Sandman graphic novels, Neverwhere novel and tv-series, and of coarse Stardust and American Gods. The illustrator of The Sleeper and the Spindle is British Chris Riddell, who has been writing and illustrating books for children and youth since the 90's. I checked his webpage and was thrilled by his The Sleep of Reason series and also added one of his books to my reading list due to its title: Alienography or How to spot an alien and what to do about it.

The elements of Gaiman's fairy tale are familiar. A young queen, who has skin white as snow and hair black as raven, learns from a group of dwarfs her kingdom is threatened by a plague of sleep, that is emerging from the neighboring kingdom. Everybody who doesn't flee falls asleep for all eternity, unless a curse is broken. The curse is coming from a castle, surrounded by roses and thick thorns. Sounds familiar, right? It would seem that Snow White has defeated her evil stepmother and the Sleeping Beauty is still sleeping, and no prince is coming to save the day. I do not want to tell the whole plot because I really liked it and would not want to spoil it from you. Therefore this review too is a bit short.

Since I found this book with children's books, I would like to address the matter of this fairy tale actually being a children's story. That might not be the case though it is a picture book. Illustrator Chris Riddell has made stunningly beautiful pictures that fit perfectly the slightly gloomy atmosphere of Gaiman's writing. As you can see of the photos, the illustrations are black and white with a little highlight of gold. The style is more appealing to people twelve-years-old and up than small children.

As you can see from these two previous photos, the cover is made interestingly out of two layers. The illustration shimmers from underneath, making an eerie and haunting impression.

Another thing that makes this fairy tale less a children's story is the narration. Firstly the narrator is a bit jumpy, and instead of mostly linear story from the beginning to the end, there are flashbacks and meta remarks like the one about names.

"Have you noticed," asked the shortest of the dwarfs, "something unusual?" They had names, the dwarfs, but human beings were not permitted to know what they were, such things being sacred.
The queen had a name, but nowadays people only ever called her Your Majesty.
Names are in short supply in this telling. 

Now that is really untypical for a fairy tale. Of coarse, this tale is written or at least published 2013 so it is not a slave for the conventions of folklore and old fairy tales. Remarks like the one about names interfere with the immersion of the reader and are way more often used in stories for mature readers than for kids. Immersion happens when a reader is caught up in the story and I think The Sleeper and the Spindle systematically estranges the reader from the story's world. The whole kingdom is falling asleep and so the narration becomes more and more like a dream. I loved that the story gets weirder and creepier the longer one reads it.

I am not saying a child would not like this story because of the estranged narration but I do think an adult would enjoy it. I mean that this short novel is fit for people of different ages who like creepy stories. This indeed is a creepy tale, with its sleeping people who move around a bit like zombies, with the heroine who does not submit to the traditional pattern of a fairy tale, and with the evil that is behind the whole curse. Everything is not the way it seems in this story and that is really refreshing for the reader!

Finally, I would like to concentrate attention to what is partly already said; the way the story is narrated is quite unique and the language is beautiful. It is an intriguing clash of a fairy tale and modern suspense. The character of the queen is strong and definitely not just a girl anymore. She has seen so much and suffered so much and the whole atmosphere of the story is somehow extremely melancholic and agonizing. Still, the narration is light and fine, like a girl sleeping in a glass coffin.

All in all, I do recommend reading The Sleeper and the Spindle and I must say that the rich illustrations can keep one in marvel for many views and reads.

Creepy Reads Review: John Polidori's Vampyre - The first vampire novel.

A tale of an aristocrat vampire 70 years before Bram Stoker's Dracula!

The topic of this post is a novella (or a short story) written by John Polidori, a man who attended the competition of horror writing among Lord Byron and Mary Godwin. She would later become famous as Mary Shelley, the writer of Frankenstein.

The edition of Vampyre* I own has a really good introduction by Christopher Frayling. He states that this story by Polidori was actually first told by Lord Byron in the competition. Byron and Polidori had a falling-out that summer of the competition and Polidori rewrote the story and published it three years later. The situation in 1819, the year of the publishing, was rather heated, there was an introduction attached that linked the vampire of the novella and the extravagant persona of lord Byron. It was also clear that the selling of the novella was influenced by gossips of the day. Here is the novella with those provoking attachments for free, by Project Gutenberg, if you are interested!

Side note: I actually read years ago another interesting short story, that fictionalized Byron and made him a vampire and John Polidori was his victim. It was an intriguing scenario but for the death of me I can't remember where I saw it, who had written it and what was the name!

I really like the Finnish edition of Vampyre by publishing house Faros, the cover is really elegant and gloomy. Here is a photo of the one I own, as you can see it is a bit worn out.

After that beauty of the cover, let's move on to the content of Polidori's novella. I think it is an exceptionally good example of the alive and kicking Romanticism among the era of science and advancement. The narration is almost scientific at points, reporting the story, but the actual events are spooky and supernatural, like in a typical Gothic or Romantic novel. (In this case I am referring to Gothic as a literature genre not a modern subculture.)

I love how the narrator is slightly ironic towards the hero of the story, a young gentleman called Aubrey. The narrator points out that poor Aubrey is a bit silly, believing into all kinds of superstition. Still, Aubrey is a decent bloke, almost too good to be true. He is appalled by vice and he is a real gentleman when it comes to the opposite sex and romantic feelings.

The story is mostly from Aubrey's point of view. That means the narrator concentrates on things Aubrey sees and thinks, instead of elaborating the inner worlds of other characters. Only in the end the thoughts of Lord Ruthven, a man Aubrey believes is a vampire, are revealed. It is quite entertaining, although I must admit all characters are rather plain archetypes. That is understandable, this being the first vampire novel(la).

J. W. Polidori. Source

I would say this horror story is also a tragedy (again as a genre), so the expectations of the reader are going to be rather grim, if they start to read the novella as a tragedy. I hope I am not spoiling too much but a tragedy usually ends in tears, the hero is destroyed by fate, everybody suffers and so on. People tend to love a good tragedy, that's why when you are asked to name the first play by Shakespeare that comes to mind, you usually say Macbeth or Hamlet. Polidori's Vampyre too is going to be a sinister ride for the reader, so I am sure many goths of today will like it!

The language is old, being from the 1819 but the novella is still rather fast to read. I do recommend it.

Thanks for reading and next time I shall post a bit before 24th, and tell a nice little way to DIY old Christmas decorations.


* The whole name of the published book was The Vampyre; A Tale but I'll refer to it as Vampyre.

Creepy Reads Review: The homecoming by Ray Bradbury, illustrated by Dave McKean

In November's Creepy Reads Review I am going to introduce a short story by Ray Bradbury (1920-2012). Bradbury's best known work is Fahrenheit 451, a novel that describes a dystopian society, in which books are considered dangerous and are therefore outlawed. I shall not talk about it any longer but it is a classic when it comes to novels describing fictive dark futures. The short story of Bradbury I am going to write about is The homecoming, which was first published 1946, though I have a copy published in 2006. The homecoming is a tale for both adults and children thanks to its universal themes and almost poetry-like language and of coarse pictures; this new edition I have is illustrated by Dave McKean, a well known artist.

You are probably familiar with the illustrator's other works especially the ones in which Neil Gaiman has also been participating. Dave McKean has for example made the cover for Neil Gaiman's Coraline, and McKean has directed MirrorMask (screenplay by Gaiman) and he has made a lot of art (covers, illustrations and so on) for Gaiman's Sandman graphic novels. He was also a concept artist in two Harry Potter movies.

The main character of The homecoming is a 10-year-old Timothy, who is the only human member of a family of ghouls. It is All Hallows' Eve and all the creepy and odd family members are coming to celebrate together at the home of Timothy's parents. The story is about a heartbreaking situation of a little boy, longing to belong but realizing his own difference. I really like this set-up, because usually goth-y stories are about the spooky one (a teenage werewolf or a vampire), who is different in the creepy and alluring way the readers would like to be themselves.

Many goths and other darkly inclined people like mythical horror creatures and would like them to be true. In The homecoming those creatures are true but the poor protagonist still can't be completely included into the creatures' dark world or to really take part in all the activities of the huge party on All Hallows' Eve. He is not even sure if he really wants to be exactly like others. Though Timothy loves his family, his little pounding heart allows him to see the sun, which he loves too.

This short story reminds us that you can't have everything you want and more importantly, all things you want are not good for you.

Another big theme beside the theme of "not belonging" is death. The story is also about Timothy realizing his own mortality in a family of ghouls. His blood circulation is the sign of life and also of the inevitable death. By accepting his fundamental difference, Timothy can come in terms with his own mortality and even more importantly, by accepting his own mortality, which makes him different, he can also belong. With the mortality Timothy also finds that part of himself that is same with the other family members and allows him to participate to ghoulish life, even if just for a fleeting moment.

Thanks for reading my review, I hope some of you get inspired and if you see The homecoming somewhere, you'll grab it and read it!