Sunday, November 16, 2014

Comfort Me With Apples

David Longhorn's anthology, Supernatural Tales 28, has a story -- or should I call it a segment of a story? -- that I recommend to anyone who thinks our field is too familiar, too clichéd.

The story, "Comfort Me With Apples," is part of a longer piece by Jacob Felsen, "Bright Hair About The Bone." It turns the most common of human issues into something quietly strange, and its deceptively simple ending has remained in my head for the past few hours.

For me, this is the great advantage of supernatural fiction, horror fiction, dream fiction: it makes the familiar seem alien, and by doing this, paradoxically, it brings us back to the lonely questions that keep us awake in those hours long before sunrise. It brings us back to ourselves.

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