In the 3rd episode of our bookchat podcast For
Whom The Book Tolls, I discuss ghost and mystery stories ideal for Christmas
reading with fellow Cumbrian writer Ken Ford-Powell.
You can listen to the podcast here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7kj1iZYCP4
We both absolutely loved Nicholas Foster’s The Consul
From Tunis, an impressive debut collection of subtly disturbing tales that will
appeal to those who prefer their supernatural to be gore-free but soaked in
discomfit and anxiety of the most sophisticated sort. Foster pays hommage to MR James early on in
his collection, and his work is every bit as good as the master’s own.
In Foster’s collection a group of old university friends
hold an annual reunion at a swish restaurant and, over the port, swap stories
of the uncanny. Suddenly, we’re not in Covent Garden anymore: war-time Greece,
medieval Cyprus, the English Revolution and Byzantine slave-masters release
their unquiet revenants into post-prandial post-Brexit Britain. Difficult to
pick out brilliants from such a rich casket, but these moved and enthralled me.
In ‘Ghosts in the Machine’ martyred sectarians of the English Civil War escape
from hell to hack a City firm’s IT systems. The heroine of ‘Joining The Dance’,
an art restorer in a post-Soviet Baltic state, is subtly ensorcelled by the
hidden images of damnation in the fresco she’s restoring. And a high court
judge’s career is derailed by the intervention of a witness summoned by forces
more potent than the law that he serves in ‘The Hand of Justice’.
There are two things about Foster’s craftsmanship that lift
these stories above simply being highly accomplished. First, their wide
historical and cultural frame of reference always feels authentically
experienced rather than merely ‘well-researched’. Secondly, the tales are
structured as Chinese box narratives that disorient the reader just enough to
leave you unprepared for the jolting manifestation of the uncanny: this is
story-telling as conjuring, in both the obvious senses of the word. I loved this
collection. And I can’t wait for his next.
The Consul From Tunis is strongly recommended as the
perfect Christmas present for any friend who loves high class supernatural
chills.
We also discussed Isaac Asimov’s Tales of The Black
Widowers, and Roald Dahl’s Collected Short Stories – both classics
of their genre that are perfect reading on a winter evening with a glass of
malt and a roaring fire.
The podcast is also available on Ken’s blog Write Out Loud, which I recommend you
follow.
And here are links to the books we discuss –
The
Consul From Tunis by Nicholas Foster;
Tales
of The Black Widowers by Isaac Asimov;
The Ghost Stories of MR James;
The Collected Short Stories by Roald Dahl.
No comments:
Post a Comment