BIG DARK HOLE: AND OTHER STORIES, Jeffrey Ford's latest story collection

BIG DARK HOLE: and Other Stories
JEFFREY FORD
Small Beer Press
$17.00 trade paper, available now

FINALIST FOR THE 2022 LOCUS AWARD—BEST COLLECTION! Winners announced 25 June 2022.

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A Jeffrey Ford story may start out in the innocuous and routine world of college teaching or evenings on a porch with your wife. But inevitably the weird comes crashing in. Maybe it’s an unexpected light in a dark and uninhabited house, maybe it’s a drainage tunnel that some poor kid is suddenly compelled to explore. Maybe there’s a monkey in the woods or an angel that you’ll need to fight if you want to gain tenure. Big Dark Hole is about those big, dark holes that we find ourselves once in a while and maybe, too, the big dark holes that exist inside of us.

I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA LIBRARYTHING'S EARLY REVIEWERS. THANK YOU.

My Review: Dudebro Jeffrey Ford voice on full Technicolor display...if you've never read Ford's stories, you're either going to hate the hell out of that voice from giddy-up to whoa, in which case give the collection a miss; or you're going to see the voice as its own contiunuing character, the kind-of career-long Rod Serling of the author's imaginitive universe. I liked the voice from my first encounter and if you don't, bail instantly.

These aren't Horror Stories, they're atmospheric tales of strange and uncongruent realities that look a lot like consensus reality. As is the statutory requirement for story-collection reviews, I will employ the Bryce Method of giving a line or two and a rating to each story individually.

The Thousand Eyes does a lot in a little space. It's Gary speaking, introducing his South Jersey homeplace with its various ongoing side characters:

Barney explained Merle's style as "Edward Hicks meets Edward Hopper in a bare-knuckle match."

High-class medium-octane unease-inducing weirdness set in a South Jersey dive (!) bar with a "Devil Went Down to Georgia" vibe...let's say 3.5 stars

Hibbler’s Minions introduces us to a carnival at large in the Dustbowl era from Janus the Two-Faced Man's point of view. Only his two faces are actually two separate-ish people in one body; and Ichbon, the Maestro, was a protégé of the great Barnum who's assembled a *true* carnival. The carnies are all truly unusual, not flimsy fakes; the people are genuinely interesting. But every Eden has an end, and this one....

Fleas, never my favorite critters, will feature in my nightmares for a long, long time. 4 stars

Monster Eight stopped exactly when it was getting good!!

"I do have an appointment to break a priest's leg this evening, so if we could pick up the pace, that would be fine," {the Monster} said.

You bloody tease, Jeffrey Ford! Promising me such excellent and earned violence then...*poof* 3.5 ragey stars

Inn of the Dreaming Dog uses the Satanic Second (Person) voice to remind us that one companion is worth fighting to keep; no one really understands your journey but you; and the guides are also the jailers in a simulated Paradise that makes no sense until you realize only Hell is real. 4 stars despite poking me in my chest for eleven pages.

Monkey in the Woods reminds us that Memory is a goddess for a reason: She's distant, pretty, and unapproachable; but dare to make yourself known to her, she will rip the veil off and show you the rotting nothingness of reality! Fun times. 3.5 stars

The Match twanged me like a guitar string (out-of-tune G#).

That night was a Friday, so we sat out on the porch and got hammered on wine. Me, red. Lynn, white. We played the little cylinder of a music box on Pandora's Nat King Cole station. It was spring and things were starting to blossom.

Saint Drogo, the bilocating patron saint of coffee? Metatron, the Recording Angel? Neither attested in any primary sources; each seemingly invented from whole cloth to suit the needs of the moment; this all happens in the dreams of a semi-soused old Composition teacher. Sheer, playful delight. 4.5 stars

From the Balcony of the Idawolf Arms does the improbable: Makes a struggling family the romantic heart of a monster movie without losing a single member. The struggling mom, the kids without supervision but working with her to keep the ship afloat...and the enigma of Mr. Susi, the reclusive landlord who just *might* be a li'l bit too fond of calamari... 4 stars

Sisyphus in Elysium endows the ancient myth of condign punishment with a physicality, an absoluteness that roots it in reality ina shocking way. It never fails...your work in Life isn't completable, but your work also isn't escapable. The idea of Sisyphus and his labors is always fresh and never, ever fresher than when it's told with Author Ford's cruelest and least self-forgiving rage. 5 stars


The Jeweled Wren takes us inside the haunted house, you know the one...there's never anything wrong with it, but it's just *wrong* in some indefinable way...the one where no one ever seems to make any noise but you could swear you heard something. There! Didn't you hear that?

"At every corner of the basement," said Hester, "there's a plate with a rotting horse chestnut on it. Could be some ghost nonsense."

"It's to keep spiders out of the house," said Gary.

"How do you know that?" she asked.

"Some guy told me when I was over walking in the preserve. There are a couple of those trees and they'd dropped these weird green globes. I asked the guy what they were and he told me all about them and the thing about the spiders. I asked him if the spider thing really worked. He said, 'Good as anything.'"

He plays with us, does Author Ford. He sets this little thought-bomb off...what could horse chestnuts have to do with this story, no one spends that much time talking about something that doesn't pay off...and Tasers us with a twist that only makes sense if you assume that the meaning isn't the story, but the story is about meaning. 4.5 stars

Not Without Mercy Cosmic version of The Ring. Oh...Uncle Gribnob...please, please take me first. 4 stars

The Bookcase Expedition brings Lynn and Gary back to us, and remember Barney from "The Thousand Eyes"? He's got a cameo, of sorts. She's got her ways, does Lynn, and Gary's just not swift enough to catch her as she uses them. I think Sopso is the real hero of the piece, though... 3.5 stars

The Winter Wraith truly made me glad I can't have a Yule tree anymore..."A distant cousin, once accused of pyromania, arriving for an indefinite visit," sounds awful doesn't it. But just you wait.... 3.5 stars

Big Dark Hole really doesn't do one damn thing for me. Stand by Me, sort of? Only with a Ben vibe...? Anyway. Not the best example of a Ford story. 3 stars

Thanksgiving brings "Uncle Jake" to the table...the one old guy no one really remembers, the irritating eternal there-ness that truthfully masks the absent ones from all tables. Unwanted, unneeded, undeserving...all the usual things spare people get thought about them. But what if, this once, there's more to "Uncle Jake" than you thought? Fuck around and find out.... 4 stars

Five-Pointed Spell brings Lynn and Gary back, Mr. Ford this time, as they abandon South Jersey for the fleshpots of Ohio where Lynn can have her dream job. They buy their old Ohio farmhouse. It comes with serious baggage, strange doins...it all comes with ghosts. What doesn't, we're in a Ford story!

He's, well, he's a Long Islander and would like to get a little oceany now and then, so takes a chance to read in New York City...that goes to scarytown, of course. Ghosts from his past, but really really strange paths to finding the facts about my old school pal Toby. Thank goodness for Barney! (Remember him? This is one of the charms of reading Jeffrey Ford's stories...they all end up in a cosmic-weird do loop.) I'll give this one 4.5 stars