The Skeleton Melodies
Description
"Fully-realized characters and evocative prose distinguish [Clint] Smith's outstanding second collection."-Publishers Weekly Starred Review
In 2014, Hippocampus Press published Clint Smith's first short story collection, Ghouljaw and Other Stories. That scintillating volume, which simultaneously drew upon the rich heritage of classic weird fiction and infused a new vibrancy into old motifs by a vibrant prose style, deft character portrayal, and innovative scenarios, was an instant hit. Now, Smith has assembled his second story collection, and it features all the virtues of his first book while adding new touches that will broaden his readership.
The Skeleton Melodies features such stories as "Lisa's Pieces," a grisly tale of cruelty and murder; "Fiending Apophenia," in which a schoolteacher reflects poignantly on his past derelictions; "The Fall of Tomlinson Hall," wherein Smith draws upon his own expertise in the culinary arts to fashion a story of cannibalistic terror; and "The Rive," a highly timely post-apocalyptic account of the horrors that inequities in health care can foster.
Other stories treat of domestic strife leading to supernatural or psychological horror, such as "Animalhouse" or "The Undertow, and They That Dwell Therein." The volume culminates in the richly textured novella "Haunt Me Still," one of the most subtle and powerful ghost stories in recent years.
Clint Smith is establishing an enviable reputation as a leading voice in contemporary weird fiction. This volume will only augment his high standing in the field.
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About the Author
Clint Smith is the author of The Skeleton Melodies (Hippocampus Press, 2020), a sophomore collection of short stories with Introduction provided by Adam Golaski. Of the collection, Laird Barron, author of Worse Angels, writes, “Smith's affect is a pendulum that swings from the classical and the mannered into his own vision of contemporary darkness; a darkness that conceals all sorts of hazards. The Skeleton Melodies is a splendid collection brim with viscerally elegant horrors.”
Reviews
"Smith is a real find, an elegant stylist with an imagination that's unsettling, paranoid, gruesomely funny at times, and startlingly original. He's written one of the scariest sex scenes I've ever read, but he can even make vacuuming your own house seem scary."--T.E.D. Klein, author of Providence after Dark and Other Writings
"In his compelling sophomore collection, Clint Smith dives deep into his characters' psyches, unearthing the histories, the mysteries driving them toward horrors visceral and cosmic. His stories make reference to the work of John Cheever, of George Orwell, and his fiction displays the same attention to style, to grace and elegance of expression, which distinguishes the writing of those writers. In Smith's work, carefully rendered portraits of daily existence open into the weird and terrifying. There are images of body horror in these pages that would not be out of place in the early films of David Cronenberg, and there are evocations of vistas immense as any in the work of Machen and Klein. With these stories, Smith solidifies and extends the gains made in his first collection, and leaves us eager for another."--John Langan, author of Sefira and Other Betrayals
"Smith's affect is a pendulum that swings from the classical and the mannered into his own vision of contemporary darkness; a darkness that conceals all sorts of hazards. The Skeleton Melodies is a splendid collection brimming with viscerally elegant horrors."--Laird Barron, author of Worse Angels
