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Post by Shrink Proof on Jun 23, 2011 20:47:16 GMT
I'm spurred to post this one (not to mention recommend it heartily) as John Gaskin's tales came up in the thread about Railway stories on the DIY Anthologies section. Probably none too easy to find as Tartarus Press only put out 450 copies & they say they've sold them all now. Anyway, this was his 2006 follow-up to "The Dark Companion", a collection published five years earlier. IMHO, this one tops the first.
It's very tough to really put across the feel of Gaskin's stories. As difficult as trying to describe that feeling you get with the best of Aickman. Certainly it's easy enough to describe things like the settings. "The Bay Platform" is set on a fog-bound railway station in the Oxfordshire countryside in the 1950s, for example & "Rigor Mortis" is basically just about the re-upholstery of an old chair. "Road Closed" is in essence about a railway disaster intertwined with a relationship between a couple. What is hard to describe is the dream-like & on occasions time-warping effect of Gaskin's prose. It's like M R James but still totally 21st century.
The stories are:-
The Conceit of the Dancing Man
Tapiola
St John's Wood
The High-Stepping Man
The Long Retreating Day
From Lydia with Love & Laughter#
The Bay Platform
Rigor Mortis
Road Closed
Omega
I can't see why he's not far more widely known. Investigate soonest.
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Post by PeterC on Jun 24, 2011 7:52:53 GMT
Sorry, but I must disagree somewhat.
Gaskin's style owes a lot to MRJ and Aickman but he rarely achieves the mysterious tension their work has.
The Bay Platform is a good story but I found the rest of these tales rather laboured and dull.
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