To quote Edgar Allan Poe: "And all my days are trances, and all my nightly
dreams are where thy dark eye glances, and where thy footstep gleams..." No
other quote could better apply to
David Niall Wilson's collection,
The Devil's in the Flaws (Macabre Ink, 2023).
I've read
a
lot of Wilson's work over the years, and I published several of his
stories in
Deathrealm
magazine back in the day — not to mention one of his more recent tales in my
anthology,
Deathrealm: Spirits
(Shortwave Publishing, 2023). From the first of his stories that I read, back in
the 1980s, I credited him as an accomplished stylist.
The Devil's in the Flaws
proves that his style has aged like a fine wine (although I know the author is
partial to bourbon). His prose is elegant, lyrical,
masterful. While he
has penned stories and novels in various subcategories of speculative fiction —
horror, fantasy (everything from urban to sword & sorcery), science fiction,
and thriller — the twenty short tales and one novella in this collection are
primarily of a quiet, contemplative, introverted sort, more akin to the work of
Shirley Jackson, Henry James, and perhaps Caitlin Kiernan than Stephen King or
Paul Tremblay or Bridgette Nelson or any number of contemporary "horrific"
voices. There is a wee bit of Lovecraftian influence for good measure.
Author/editor
Richard Chizmar, who provided the foreword, wrote that, having been
captivated by the work, he devoured
The Devil's in the Flaws in a
single sitting. I read the first few tales from the hardback edition of this
book, but I absorbed most of it by way of the audiobook, read by the
incomparable
Joshua Saxon, whose polished, expert delivery could hardly
have been more perfect for this collection's overall tone.
Now, many,
if not most, of these stories are contemplative, dreamlike,
trance-like,
eschewing kinetic character conflict and/or action in the customary sense. Many
of the tales focus on a single character's point of view and brim with vivid
descriptions of physical or emotional stimuli, particularly those triggered by
music or intoxicating compounds — or both — perhaps most notably in the story
"Milk of Paradise." Traumatic memories often play a driving role. Of the short
tales, "Little Ghosts," "Interred," and "Fear of Flying" are the standouts for
me, with truly haunting imagery and vivid, sensual prose. "Wayne's World,"
dedicated to our mutual friend and fellow author, Wayne Allen Sallee, offers a
powerful perspective on serial killer John Wayne Gacy, with whom Sallee once
shared some correspondence. I suspect Wilson's take on Gacy's horrific soul
might bring a big smile to Mr. Sallee's face.
For me, the crowning
work in this volume is the title novella. Here, Wilson's style shines. The
well-drawn characters, snappy dialogue, sense of otherworldly mystery, and an
almost Lovecraftian menace — combined with a smidgen of whimsy — make
this one of my favorite works by David Niall Wilson. Not that I could have ever
published a piece this long in
Deathrealm, but the novella is, at its heart, the consummate
Deathrealm story. It is, as they say, worth the full price of
admission.
The Devil's in the Flaws as a collection
strikes me, at times, as
too internalized, surreal, and trance-like, and
I wonder if re-ordering some of the tales might bring a more balanced ebb and
flow to the pacing. Regardless, the title story as the collection's finale packs
such a lovely wallop that, whatever the sequencing of the other tales, it will
leave you staggered — in the best possible sense.
Four out of five
Damned Rodan's Dirty Firetinis.
