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A review by ctgt
Little Sister Death by William Gay
4.0
The cornfield seemed darker toward its center. Light entered at the rows’ end, ran like liquid down the middles, getting shallower and shallower. There seemed at the convergence of the rows some mass of shadows light could not defray.
William Gay takes a crack at the Bell Witch legend in this novella that was published posthumously. As with any work published without the direct involvement of the author there are plenty of questions about this story. Was this a work in progress? Was it finished but Gay didn't like it for some reason? Did he ever intend to publish the story? Unless something is discovered in his papers we will never know. It certainly seems unfinished, there are many threads hanging at the conclusion of the story and the ending is abrupt. This would be the logical interpretation of the work. I do admit to taking a "weird fiction" view of the story. What I enjoy about weird fiction are the unanswered questions, the plot mysteries that keep forcing their way back in to my thinking, the threads left dangling. So I think I ended up enjoying this more than most.
After the unexpected success of his first book, a young author struggles to come up with a second and decides to move his family onto the property where the Bell Witch hauntings took place. Needless to say, the family gets more than they bargained for:
He found himself waiting, staring intently at the doorway of the toolshed, a rectangle of Cimmerian darkness that seemed beyond darkness, darkness multiplied by itself, and he was thinking, Something is going to happen. He sensed a change in the air.
He felt watched. He turned. Some faint noise, perhaps a whisper of wind in the dry cornstalks. A black dog watched him stoically from the edge of the cornfield. An enormous dog, high-shouldered and lean, standing cold and still as ice.
Hunkered there in the darkness, he felt before himself a door, madness already raising the hand to knock. Madness sniffing at his tracks like an unwanted dog. Madness would escort him the rest of the way there, clutching at him and whispering adulterous secrets in his ear.
I really enjoyed this story but your mileage may vary.
8/10
William Gay takes a crack at the Bell Witch legend in this novella that was published posthumously. As with any work published without the direct involvement of the author there are plenty of questions about this story. Was this a work in progress? Was it finished but Gay didn't like it for some reason? Did he ever intend to publish the story? Unless something is discovered in his papers we will never know. It certainly seems unfinished, there are many threads hanging at the conclusion of the story and the ending is abrupt. This would be the logical interpretation of the work. I do admit to taking a "weird fiction" view of the story. What I enjoy about weird fiction are the unanswered questions, the plot mysteries that keep forcing their way back in to my thinking, the threads left dangling. So I think I ended up enjoying this more than most.
After the unexpected success of his first book, a young author struggles to come up with a second and decides to move his family onto the property where the Bell Witch hauntings took place. Needless to say, the family gets more than they bargained for:
He found himself waiting, staring intently at the doorway of the toolshed, a rectangle of Cimmerian darkness that seemed beyond darkness, darkness multiplied by itself, and he was thinking, Something is going to happen. He sensed a change in the air.
He felt watched. He turned. Some faint noise, perhaps a whisper of wind in the dry cornstalks. A black dog watched him stoically from the edge of the cornfield. An enormous dog, high-shouldered and lean, standing cold and still as ice.
Hunkered there in the darkness, he felt before himself a door, madness already raising the hand to knock. Madness sniffing at his tracks like an unwanted dog. Madness would escort him the rest of the way there, clutching at him and whispering adulterous secrets in his ear.
I really enjoyed this story but your mileage may vary.
8/10