In a Nutshell: Sinister short stories
Sublimely spine-tingling, this evokes all the dread of an ominous tap-tap-tapping on your door in the dead of night.
Picture this. You rush to catch your usual train but your relief at making it in time shifts to unease when you realise that it’s eerily empty. Your journey is only supposed to be three stops, but it’s taking too long and the route is unfamiliar. You seize an opportunity to disembark, but wonder how you’ll get home from this deserted station. Then a man appears, with his dog, carrying a glass lantern. He offers to tell you stories to pass time while you await another train. At least there is another train, you think. And then the stranger starts to tell his stories, and a Pandora’s box of paranoia is unleashed. What’s common to each of the old man’s tales is an aching sense of alienation, helplessness, and feeling trapped (I think Babysitting hit me hardest, though it’s impossible to choose – more on that in a moment…), with uncomfortable interludes between the boy and the storyteller adding to the novel’s tension (amusingly, the boy is as irritated as he is afraid). All he wants to do is go home, but he’s trapped in the stranger’s game and the train won't come until he chooses his favourite story. “What’s real is what we believe,” says the storyteller. Heaven help the listener who believes these stories to be true…
The writing is taut, electric as exposed wiring, and conjures an exquisitely vivid sense of dread. Masterfully macabre, this comes highly recommended for fans of Chris Priestly's chilling Uncle Montague stories, or Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected. ~ Joanne Owen
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