A review by sargasso_c
The Trees Grew Because I Bled There: Collected Stories by Eric LaRocca

challenging dark emotional

3.75

This collection, as can now be expected of Eric LaRocca, has a few gems amongst a group of overall pleasing -or at least well crafted - and shiny rocks. The last story in the collection, Please Leave or I'm Going to Hurt You, stood out to me as significantly better than the rest. I would give that story alone a 4.5 rating. I also enjoyed the stories Bodies are for Burning and You're Not Supposed to be Here. To me, Bodies had an underlying meaning.
One could interpret Bodies as the story of someone who shifts from "The bond of motherhood is something I know I'll never understand." to someone that certainly acts like a Parent in terms of fearless self-sacrifice for the child in her care. This transformation is after an almost magical encounter with an elderly woman in a hardware store. With a phrase that seemed to carry at the same time hypnotic and hypnosis-breaking properties, the main character, Hailey, is changed in an instant from someone consumed by compulsion and selfishness, to just what the elderly woman calls her: "a loving mother."
While I'm still pondering my interpretation of the subtext in You're Not Supposed to be Here, I definitely enjoyed it for the horror writing alone. While the rest of the stories didn't necessarily strike me as especially outstanding in the horror or literary fields, they were all a decidely interesting read. After finishing The Trees Grew Because I Bled Here, I feel the time reading the book was time spent entertained and spent well.
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