A review by motherhorror
Rust and Bone: Stories by Craig Davidson

5.0

When I was in high school, 1990-1994 I read everything through the lens of a drama student. The drama nerds at our school, in the time that I was there, were all very serious about the craft. We competed at tournaments and competitions.
I would have given *anything* to have found a short story collection like this one in order to pull monologues from it to compete with.
Craig Davidson is hands down my favorite author next to Stephen King.
He's a genius--the way he works with words and insight is remarkable. He knows people. He knows human beings better than so many other authors that work from the plot/outside and work towards the characters/inside.
Davidson is the opposite, he works from the Inside/Out.
The plot serves the people.
And the people are so flesh and blood, I feel like I'm inside a real person for the duration of the story.
The title story, Rust & Bone knocked me on my ass like a sucker punch to the throat. Some of the visuals and wordsmithing here was so poetic, so beautifully tragic, I found myself reading the words over and over again before moving on in the story, my eyes blurry with tears.
Another favorite story was "Friction" which was about sex addicts but it wasn't really--it was about the tangible reality of all addiction. Something anyone could relate to.
"When she reached over the counter to pay you saw these downy hairs, a raised blue vein and I wanted to touch that spot, smell it and taste it. Crazy but I wanted to shrink myself, atomize like that those scientists in fantastic voyage, view things at a cellular level. I wanted to know everything about it--not her, you understand, I didn't care about her history or goals or fears, any of that. Just be intimate with that unthinking portion of her."
This portion gave me goosebumps as an actor. To see someone stand in a spotlight on a stage and monologue this scene to a room full of people, MAN. It would form a connection. It would move everyone in that room to a dark, still space where it's just the words and the people.
Anyways,
I loved this collection and I loved that I was able to savor them periodically over a long period of time, dipping in and out of it as I needed between horror books this year.
Truly Craig Davidson is a gifted writer and I look forward to more.