Synopsis
A family’s Halloween haunted house becomes a conduit to something ancient and uncanny; a young man’s effigy of a movie monster becomes instrumental in his defense against a bully; a family diminishes while visiting a seaside town, leaving only one to remember what changed; a father explores a mysterious tower, and the monster imprisoned within; a man mourning the death of his father travels to his father’s hometown, seeking closure, but finds himself beset by dreams of mythic bargains and a primeval, corpse-eating titan.
John Langan, author of the Bram Stoker Award-winning novel The Fisherman, returns with ten new tales of cosmic horror in Corpsemouth and Other Autobiographies. In these stories, he continues to chart the course of 21st century weird fiction, from the unfamiliar to the familial, the unfathomably distant to the intimate.
Includes extensive story notes and an introduction by Sarah Langan.
Review
Much like what many of his characters encounter in these stories, there’s a certain pull to Langan’s works that keeps me coming back. He has a way of writing such rich narratives, with depths to plunder and hidden secrets and connections to be uncovered.
Having only read the Fisherman recently – a book that only improves in my mind the further I stray from it – I felt the pull to dive into more of his work. His collection, Corpsemouth and Other Autobiographies (which is just such a cool subheading), continues to showcase his unique blend of literary cosmic horror, with several stories being, absolute bangers!
Langan pulls inspiration from several of his own real-life experiences, all of which he notes in the back section “Story Notes”, in which he uses these moments from his life to explore a theme or an idea, to work out something that he has on his mind. And many of his stories from this collection contain many of the same recurring elements; Scottish lineage, IBM, upstate New York, water, fishing, and most importantly, real human lives with history. Langan often spends many of these stories delving into the pasts of the characters we follow, in what seemingly is a meandering, trickling manner, like many of the rivers that our characters frequent. But these slow-burn stories draw you in to a larger, more subtly grand narrative, creating portraits of real people facing up against fears both internal and external. The recurring elements of horror build a shared mythology that’s always super fun to discover. These glimpses at something greater (and maybe evil?) is just as fun as discovering the connections in King’s novels, especially his Dark Tower connections.
Some standouts here for me are Shadow & Thirst, The Supplement, Outside The House…, and Mirror Fishing, but I thoroughly enjoyed all stories collection within!
In short, Corpsemouth & Other Autobiographies is a fantastically tantalising set of dark tales, with a deep mythology to be uncovered as you scratch away at its surface, revealing something sinister between the words on the page. And these stories will linger in your conscious, long after you’ve turned the final page!
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