This isn’t saying it’s a bad thing, it’s just a jarring change of tone, that’s all. In other words, a collection of subtle horror stories becomes a pulpy globetrotting adventure in the vein of August Derleth. One of the problems with THAT WHICH SHOULD NOT BE is that by the end of the stories it isn’t content to just die horribly, but instead it starts delving into catacombs and travelling to a certain sunken city in the Pacific for a traditional good vs. Throughout the novel the stories adhere to a subtle, no-nonsense style of a (supposedly) found narrative, a very common device in horror stories, especially lovecraftian ones, where by the end of his story the narrator usually hears strange scratching noises at his window, bringing the otherwise somewhat dry narrative to a visceral close. They’re not mere pastiches, more like lovingly crafted tributes that borrow the framework and some recognizable details from the stories by the old masters and then reinvent and rearrange the contents (something Lovecraft himself did all the time!). And in the fourth story, we’re firmly back talking about the same things as the framing narrative, as a sea captain recounts the story of how he came to acquire the book that’s the cause of all this storytelling in the first place.Īs said, the stories are brilliantly executed. The story takes place in a mental asylum, where a young doctor becomes aware of strange goings-on with the patients. The setting and the mood of the stories is excellent, and both are told in a relaxed style slightly out of time, as if the stories were indeed penned back when Blackwood and Stoker were publishing their stories about one hundred years ago.īy the third story the narratives begin to converge. Blackwood’s Secret Worship sprang to mind, as well as Dracula. The second story takes place in dark continental Europe and tells the story of travellers who end cooped up in a strange gothic convent during Walpurgisnacht. The first story, taking place in the great white north, is an enjoyble riff on Algernon Blackwood’s The Wendigo. As he enters a local tavern, he’s invited to sit with a group of strangers who proceed to regale him with their stories. The framing story features a common lovecraftian protagonist, an antiquarian type in search of a lost book that has apparently been discovered in a small town called Anchorhead. And there are more than one, four narratives are encapsulated by a framing story that also ties the others together, in a fashion similar to Arthur Machen’s The Three Impostors.
Knowledgeable in the styles it emulates, stylish in the stories it brings forth. Talley’s novel THAT WHICH SHOULD NOT BE has certainly earned all the hype it has received.
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