Are You Loathsome Tonight?: A Collection of Short Stories by Peter Straub

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Author: Peter Straub
Release date: May, 2000
Media: Paperback
ISBN: 1887368256

self- made crap

I picked this anthology up under the title 'Self-Made Man'. I'm glad I got it for a few dollars from a 2nd hand bookshop because I would have been mightily teed off if i paid the full cover price.

The only book of Poppy's worth reading is 'Swamp Foetus'. Moments in that are quite incredible. I was suckered in to immediately buying the two novels Drawing Blood and Lost Souls. What a waste of money.

I remember an interview with another female writer when comparisons were made to Poppy. That writer was not happy about such comparisons. She offered the opinion that 'Poppy is yet to write a novel'.

I couldn't agree more. Since Swamp Foetus Poppy has travelled too far on too little.

Back to the book in question - anybody who dedicates an anthology with 'To Ramsey Campbell, master of the form' immediately requires an examination of their critical judgement. I also have books by Ramsey but I must say he is one of the most tedious writers of my bookshelves, the genre, and I doubt seriously whether will be considered as a memorable writer of the 20th century.

He's sold heaps. The bible's sold more. How tedious is that?

Peter Straub's intro is terrible. Like a 17 yr old's first letter to the campus newspaper. It's embarrassing, it's full of gush and you wince as you wade through it.

Things actually get worse. Poppy's forewords are excruciatingly painful and sound as though penned by a fourteen yr old. I imagine they are supposed to be enigmatic, suggestive of dark erotic sweetmeats almost too terrible to imagine. The prose of the 'stories' is not much better. The stories are very much like gossamer, disappearing as you search for some hint of substance or motivation for the same tired post modern gothic array of atrocities.

"Saved" is particularly embarrassing. More so considering it is a collaboration. It is hard to conceive how two writers could produce a more stupid piece of writing, suffering a complete lack of motivation for its protagonist's actions. The ending is completely predictable from the 2nd paragraph. A reader actually believes that two writers would be cunning and thwart such a predictable narrative expectation. This reader obviously expected too much from two writers.

I am sure some lonely teenage girls stuck in mid-west boringville will find these pieces entertaining. I'd rather watch slow motion reels of crash-test dummies colliding into brick walls.