Tattered Souls, edited by Frank J. Hutton

The first offering in anthology Tattered Souls, edited by Frank J. Hutton, is Jeff Crook’s “The Monkey Skin Cloak,” a battle against primal frenzy in the African jungle. Theo, his wife, Stanci, and guide, Doc Palmer, are on safari when their jeep runs over a native girl. It soon becomes clear that Stanci has somehow absorbed the spirit of the African girl who turns out not to have been quite as human as they had initially supposed. Stanci’s transformation leaves Theo and Doc desperately defending themselves from fierce, animal savagery—which is expressed no less in lust than in violence.

Crook does an excellent job with the horror descriptions in “The Monkey Skin Cloak.” The key images are well-chosen and horribly vivid, sure to stick in your mind for weeks to come. He makes good use of the power inherent in descriptions of sex, depicting three sexual acts, each with its own purpose and significance, each providing a highly charged twist to the story. When is sex in fiction not gratuitous? When it serves the story by advancing or exposing plot, theme, or character. When is hyena fellatio in fiction not gratuitous? In “The Monkey Skin Cloak.”

Bringing this story down a notch is its poor structure and uneven emphasis. It begins with Stanci facing off against Theo and Doc, who don’t seem to take the girl’s death very seriously. Afterwards, her transformation is first revealed by her sudden assertiveness and confidence. We feel that Stanci is claiming power for herself, power which was previously outside her reach, as the curse brings out a conflict that was hidden but present. However, this element’s presence is haphazard throughout; sometimes it seems to be the focus, but at others it seems forgotten entirely—with the straightforward threat of the curse and its physical danger stage center. The cliché setting, the simple story structure, and a threat that robs the characters of their personality and free will do not encourage readers to keep their eyes open for deeper layers, and the shifts in emphasis left me confused about the story’s focus and therefore unsatisfied. “The Monkey Skin Cloak” is definitely a decent read (using the less puritan definition of “decent”) but could have been much better.

The second offering is Richard Wright’s “Other People,” which describes, in depth and detail, four suicides—a gimmick sure to grab a readers’ attention.

Individually, each suicide is well-written and chilling. Particularly powerful is the portrayal of determination and supreme effort in the characters’ self-destructiveness; each works hard and suffers greatly for their “easy way out.” The characters are interesting, and their outlandish deaths earn our belief and our horror. But put them all together, and the whole is less than the sum of its parts. It’s the repetition that kills it. Though each character’s personality, motive, and method are different, the narrative is nearly identical. We get the point halfway into the second suicide, and by the beginning of the third, there’s little need to read any further. The description of multiple suicides, each different, although occurring simultaneously and in the same building, seems intended to comment upon society in general but instead feels formulaic, calling attention to the gimmick and failing to sustain the reader’s attention.

“The End of Flesh” by Matt Wallace has all the familiar elements of a hard-boiled detective story: the detective who’s as weary as he is sharp, the sleazy informer, the beautiful heiress. But though the mystery’s enjoyable enough, the essence of this story is in the milieu: a not-too-far-off future in which most animals have been wiped out by disease. For most of humanity, this means the reluctant embrace of a vegetarian existence. Some, though, are willing to make do with the one source of meat that remains plentiful: human beings.

Jon Pacson is the off-the-record investigator called in when murder is coupled with cannibalism. Such is the case before him now; a prominent and well-liked son of a Councilman has been killed and burned, and it’s soon clear this is a job for Pacson. He sets out to find the killers, the perfect vehicle upon which to take the reader on a tour of this unsettling setting. Wallace has filled his world with a rich variety of characters and locations, and visiting each of them reveals another facet of this hypothetical future. Bit by bit, he constructs a dark fringe of society, small but terrifying, and (for the most part) very believable. Kudos to Wallace for an excellent story—gripping, well-written, and with a vision that we might actually have fair cause to fear.

Alex’s days are numbered in M.E. Palmer’s “Clipped Dirty Wings.” He’s a drug dealer in debt, and it looks like he’s done for. In his last few hours, he gains the company of Unkaya, an ancient goddess. Alas, the story meanders aimlessly. It tries to combine Alex’s desperate plight with that of an ancient goddess still walking the harsh streets, but in focusing on each, the other is forgotten. The threads never really connect, each seemingly independent of the others and not going anywhere, and no real story emerges from the mixture.

In “Drool,” I feel that Chris Reed has bitten off more than he can chew. “Drool” has us riding along in the brain of Charles Hacker, a psychotic pedophile who’s about to blow, told from his point of view—seeing events through his perceptions, sharing his hallucinations, following his twisted facsimile of logic.

The opening does this admirably: Charles is introduced as a worker at a laundry. His feelings of revulsion at the filth he needs to work with segue into fascination with the beauty and purity of a small child. Our first exposure to Charles’s pedophilia is shocking, but the switch is so well done that it earns our belief and attention. “Yes,” we say, “maybe that’s how they see it. That makes sense.” But from there, “Drool” goes downhill. Reed makes a valiant attempt to portray crazy actions as having a convoluted kind of sense, but “Drool” is not careful enough to truly convince, undermining the entire point of the story. It is too self-aware, too direct in showcasing Charles’s insanity to allow us to take it seriously, instead delivering a sense of being pulled by the nose: “LOOK! Look how crazy he is! Look what he’s doing NOW!” Charles’s behavior and his madness feel forced rather than interesting, and the reader waits patiently for the author to lay out the entire chain up to the bloody climax, after which we may proceed to the next story.

The anthology signs off with Chris Ryan’s “Terminal Condition.” Dickerson is a veteran cop, living his life struggling to do his meager best against society’s many ills. When one person forces Dickerson to shoot him and another jumps in front of his car, he realizes there’s more than coincidence going on. The events that follow force our protagonist to confront his ex-wife, his faith, his hopes, and his view of the world, leading to a conclusion this reader found darkly satisfying.

“Terminal Condition” does not have the energy of Tattered Souls’s earlier cop story, “The End of Flesh,” partly due to its more introspective, personal nature, as opposed to “Flesh”’s constant action. But there are also sections which feel somewhat slack, detached, or unclear. On the other hand, “Terminal Condition” offers something no other story in this collection does: an actual plot, keeping the reader in suspense and asking what happens next. It manages to be intriguing and largely unpredictable—no mean feat, in the short fiction arena. Add this to the well-handled themes of faith and despair, and to the aforementioned satisfying conclusion, and the result is a story well worth your while. This is Chris Ryan’s first published story and from what I saw in “Terminal Condition,” I wish him every success and hope to see more of his writing in the future.

Ziv’s Final Tally:
Stories: 6
MPAA Rating: NC-17
Dead Bodies: 17 men, 8 women, 2 hyena creatures
Average Dead Bodies Per Story: 2.8 men, 1.3 women, 0.3 hyena creatures
Royalty (in order of appearance): 1 Hyena Queen, 1 Goddess, 1 Burger King
Stories Without Sex: 0

Publisher: Cutting Block Press
Price: $16.95
Paperback: 192 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9778262-3-0