Thirteen morbidly melodic deep cuts from Matthew R. Davis, including the Australasian
Shadows Award-winning “Steadfast Shadowsong” and the Shirley Jackson Award-nominated
novelette “Heritage Hill.”
Dark bleatings, my Spooky Season Loving tribe! I’ve got another collection to talk about to day, ANOTHER brand, spanking new one, this time from the legend (as I consider him already), Matthew R. Davis. This last month, I’ve lost count of how many short stories I’ve read, but I can never get enough of them. Let’s dive into Davis’s offering…
Andromeda Ascends
This feels all kinds of messed up. A man is plagued by dreams of a mermaid he calls ‘Blue’, but never admits his dreams to his sister, Andy (Andromeda). She also dreams. She’s lonely and longing for something more. She doesn’t fit and neither does he, but he’s trying to dismiss it.
Years after Andy goes missing, the dreams return. I can’t say more, except that there’s something kind of uncomfortably sexual laced through this one, which added a lot of layers and nuance to the horror of it.
Steadfast Shadowsong
Oof – this is a first person account of a couple that regularly participate in a local open mic night. A familiar looking girl performs one night and they realise she sang there only once before, but made quite an impression. Through her performance, this strange lady makes an even bigger impression. Truths and horrors are revealed, the cosiness and comradery of the routine is shattered, and music will never be the same again.
This made me sad and angry for multiple reasons.
A Walking Wound
A musician/photographer notices something creepy one night when she takes a photo of a woman that she feels may have been wronged, only for the woman to not appear in the picture. She does appear in other pictures though, pictures that were already printed….
This one really gave me the creeps. It’s not the first story I’ve read about weird things happening in photos, but it’s the first time I’ve seen this trope (if that’s what you’d call it) used like this. Very eerie.
The Haunted Heart of Ebon Eidolon
This is a personal favourite because it’s such a unique (don’t-want-to-say-the-subgenre-because-it’s-a-spoiler) story. A group of 7 people are in a bar after hours, following the funeral of their friend, Ebon, who was a performer and a painter. An 8th person that they don’t know also hangs back with them after the bar clears out. They realise slowly that each of them are seeing a completely different 8th person.
This one also gave me the chills and made me feel really unsettled. I recently wrote in a different review that the uncanny tends to frighten me much more then louder forms of horror, and this one had a cold hand clamped around my metaphorical nut sack. I’m sorry for the crude imagery conjured by the phrasing but that’s honestly the best description I could think of for how this tale made me feel.
The Ballad of Elvis O’Malley
Two modern day misfits adopt the rockabilly look and make each other so popular with their shared, untypical style and hobbies that they’re crowned at the prom. That very night, they unknowingly prove that a decades-old urban legend is very true.
On the surface, this just seems like a cool, simple, tragic tale. But the more you think about it, the more layers you see peeking out at you, which is – I’m coming to realise – one of this author’s “things”. Subtlety really is one of his strengths and I love it when I take one of his stories on face value and then realise hours later that I’m still in my head dissecting it.
I Do Thee Woe
Dragan is thirty, and a new film student who dreams of making a movie, but seems to lack the drive beyond studying, and he definitely lacks the people skills to make it happen. Not necessarily a bad guy, but a lonely one with self esteem issues and a resentment of other couples publicly flaunting their affections. It seems that he’s finally going to get what he wants….or is he?!
I’m still trying to land on a decision about this character and what I think this story is about, and what I’m supposed to take from it. It’s not that the story is complicated, it’s that I don’t know whether or not to trust my suspicions. Again, this is part of the fun of this author’s style, because what you take from his stories is sometimes reliant on your own moral compass.
Pilgrimage
A girl travels far to meet her favourite musician, but misses the gig. She manages to find him in a bar, and is surprised that he recognises her when she approaches him. I can’t say more than that, but this story is presented as “this could be anything”, then slips into horror, and then depending on how you want to read it, can either be viewed as a tragedy, or ends on a very nice sentiment. For me, this was a dark but sweet story.
Heritage Hill
Oof, one of my favourites. Azalea convinces her best friend Tunde to third wheel while she tries to hook up with a woman she fancies. The woman brings her brother along, and the four of them drive around and stop at a a weird little hill. Azalea, hoping to kindle some romance at the top, wanders up the hill with her crush, leaving the other two at the bottom.
This is no ordinary hill though. It reaches much further than it appears. This is almost cosmic in scope, and covers a lot of themes and issues; friendship, race, a small town’s sordid history, prejudice and discrimination, racial violence, abuse of power, and let’s not forget, attraction and sexuality.
I’m still reeling from it.
Our Tragic Heroine
A band called ‘Our Tragic Heroine’ finishes a great show, but then they’re immediately informed that a friend, the woman who actually introduced them and got the band together, is dead. This hits them hard with guilt because they used her and her addictions and the sad state of her life as the muse for their music, despite her being upset about them doing so.
This is another of the more thought-provoking stories that had me questioning some of my own past poor decision-making. It reminded me that sometimes it is too late to do right by people, and of the importance of treating people as we hope to be treated, with empathy and respect.
Thee Most Exalted Potenta of Love
This type of story doesn’t normally fall under my preferences but I loved it. A (dangerous and illegal!) deal is going down in a modern day burlesque club, though the scene is originally set like we’re in the 1930’s, so that felt like a cool and disorientating twist (which I’ve just now realised was probably intentional, because Davis is clever like that). A woman in white walks in and though our protagonist finds the lore around her ridiculous, she soon realises that this ain’t no ordinary broad. (Did I do that right?!)
Blood. So much blood and murder. Mwahahaha.
Nymphaea
Alec loses a great relationship for numerous reasons, one of which being his attraction to barely legal girls. On drugs, he encounters what appear to be the water nymphs from a print of a famous painting that he owns. They all look on the young side, and therein begins one of many internal arguments he has with himself about his preferences. After that, he feels plagued by his thoughts, his paranoia that his ex will tell their mutual friends, who have an underage daughter, and his desires.
This was another favourite for completely different reasons to some of the others, because the character was handled with nuance (but not really sympathy), and such an uncomfortable topic was handled so well because it was layered and karmic.
The Black Regent
Josie is a horror fan that experiences the ultimate terror when Warren takes her to a theatre haunted by a man who killed his stage partner for real during a show. Josie is rolling her eyes, and pretty hard, at Warren’s attempt to spook her, until things outside of his control start happening. Undeniable, terrifying things! I related to Josie at the beginning but not at the end – that maniac!
Vision Thing
A man is walked through his life and failures by either an external or internal demon (it doesn’t really matter but i think it’s a literal demon), that represents suicidal ideation. It keeps harping on for him to end it and that he’s nothing, worthless. Through this absolutely horrible experience, our guy has an uplifting epiphany.
Though the subject of this story is possibly the darkest in the book, it’s handled in such a way that it really offers hope and peace and a perspective that I truly believe might be helpful for others who might have similar struggles, and I think it’s a nice one to end the collection with.
Overall, I think this is a very worthwhile read and a strong collection. I loved almost every story, and I loved them all for different reasons. If you’re looking for what I like to call “popcorn horror”, the kind that’s full of fun and not necessarily much substance or heavy subject matter, then this won’t be what you’re after right now. After finishing this book, I am now browsing for some popcorn horror to take the edge off, though.
This is more suited for people who enjoy metaphor, moral ambiguity, and layered story-telling that requires some thought and even some analysis. Even the stories that use recognisable horror elements are unique in what they’re about and/or how the topics are handled.
For the more pensive among you, I wholeheartedly recommend this collection. If you’d like to check out the book or the author, I’ve popped some links below for you:
Bleeeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
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