What an incredibly disturbing and captivating collection of weird horror stories from a debut author!

Generally, you never really know what to expect from debut authors, but you’re willing to give them a fair chance because you know they’re passionate about their writing. I for one think they deserve to be read. And of course, you’re always hoping to discover a literary gem.

Which I just did. Let me tell you: I’m so happy I gave Mary Hollow a chance! This collection is genuinely impressive, and I’m not saying that just because she’s a debut author. No, I am saying that “No One Came for Me” is impressive, period.

I will rate all the short stories and write a short review of each one, and I will avoid spoilers to the best of my abilities. To be honest, though, summaries wouldn’t do them any justice, as they are more like experiences that needs to be fully realized and appreciated through reading. These stories are bold, sophisticated, brutally honest, inspiring and uncanny. And the prose is visceral, vivid, rich with grim imagery and beautifully disquieting.

This is high class weird fiction, high-end horror at its finest.

First of all, that cover is both sick and slick! It evokes exactly the kind of atmosphere you’ll be immersed in as you read: gloomy isolation, unescapable dread, surrounded by various manifestations of your childhood fears. It’s exactly the kinds of fears you’ll be reliving all over again - at least for me: insects, corpses, creepy drawings and figures, darkness, sickness, hopelessness and unfamiliarity. They’re not all portrayed in this book, but it’s that kind of feeling, you know, a horrible feeling of some forgotten existential trauma.

There are more illustrations inside - very different ones - before each short story. These are black/white and more obscure and cryptic, so I’m not quite sure what to think of those. They weren’t as creepy and were mostly just confusing to me, unfortunately. Well, some of them almost gave me chills if I looked at them for long enough or considered them more carefully after I read the story, but that's about it.

Now, already in the introduction, Hollow creates suspense and anticipation by explaining the core concept of her writing. This is where she first made me keenly aware of my deepest afflictions. She calls those earliest manifestations within us a “shared and true source of all mankind’s varieties of fears – that pure existential dread that writhes at the center of the human psyche and which only children must vividly confront in its unveiled and harrowing glory.” (8) Yes, you will very soon come to understand that Hollow is a perceptive and intelligent author. She convinced me even before the first story that I do have some forgotten - and not nearly suppressed enough - past filled with childhood traumatic experiences, and that some of those experiences have been utterly terrifying. Furthermore, she, or the narrator, manages to create a bond between our inner selves and convince me that I will now be reliving “the existential plight unique to children” together with her. She becomes like one of those voices in your head who tells you that you can’t trust anyone, and yet, her voice is so wise, sound and believable in its performance that it becomes an integral part of my inner reading voice - of me.

You don’t know where fear has taken root in you and how it will manifest throughout the book, but there’s something about this style of writing that simply feels genuine, feels like it’s something we’ve all experienced in our darkest of hours. Something newfound, yet fundamental. That is simply an artform and truly captivating.

And thus begins the adventure into our personal abyss.

INVOCATION - 5

Not a short story. This is exactly what the title suggests. Performative. Dark. Very cool. Can’t explain it in any other way. Read it and summon forth …

INTO THE TANDRID LOOM - 5

A story about a young girl and the unexpected and traumatic consequences of growing up. It’s also about strange instincts, exploration, reconciliation, fear and coincidentally reaching out to form some new connection in your desire to figure things out. It’s very relatable. The prose is elegant and poetic, but also quite visceral and dark.

“The moon seemed, impossibly, to be present always – its light making the engorged mushroom caps all around glisten in the dark like wet flesh.” (18)

A LETTER TO BIANCA ROSE - 3

A dramatic run down memory lane, which begins like this: “Do you remember the night when ran for our lives, and we thought we were being followed?” (25) Yes, page-turner-quality, my dear. Many of these stories have that. They’re more often than not structured in a way that effectively creates an urge of pent-up tension. This one’s dramatic, indeed, but it’s also darkly ponderous. Perhaps a bit distractively so, as it breaks a bit with the tension and flow of the narrative. That might have more to do with me wanting to stop and wrap my head around what it all means. I ask: What part, exactly, does religion play? Is this allegory? Is that metaphor for something? I tend enjoy that kind of stuff, but it didn’t work as well for me here. Still, not bad.

“Every night, after my lover is asleep… I lie awake for hours. I sink into my tomb.” (26)

GNAW – 5

Ah! I enjoyed this one so much! A very character-driven story about a cunning man and a mysterious merchant selling the most exquisite, ancient, magical artifacts. It’s also about ambition and something incomprehensibly creative and powerful. Hollow proves here she has an eerily immaculate attention to detail, which I find both gross and engrossing. And a bit funny.

“I knew that she had a double nature, as split as a snake’s tongue.” (37)

COMING AROUND – 3

An old woman is reminiscing about her tormented high school years and, somewhat morbidly, confronts those memories. I wouldn’t necessarily call this a horror or weird story, but I still think it’s fine because it’s relatable, again, and has that dark edge to it. It also has a nice pace and was a bit of a cathartic read, to be honest.

SARAH’S FABLES: ONE - 4

A tiny tale of consequences. Well, that’s a maybe. I have no idea what I just read here, hah!

THE SLOUGH ROOM - 5

Okay, please believe me when I proclaim the following: This is one of the best weird horror stories I’ve ever read in my entire life.

I won’t reveal what the slough room is. In fact, there’s not much I can say here without spoiling the experience, but it’s written in four parts and probably the longest story in the collection. All I can say is that there’s an unusual encounter and then there’s an investigation leading to something I can’t really explain.

The story may not be as good, I suspect, after that first read, as its greatest strength is the surprise factor. Its greatest strength lies tightly in the unpredictable, the shock and awe and all the ideas and images it creates in your mind, how it makes your own sordid ideas scaring you to bits. It made my heart beat faster, my skin crawl and my spine tingle. At one point I literally tried to hide my face in the palms of my hands to try and get away from the images this story evoked and protruded from its pages.

Hollow has a fascinating imagination and the confidence of an award winning author to write it out, to enact it in such a way. Truly an engrossing read. It felt as if a demon was being summoned as I read it, suddenly bursting forth through the pages and possessing me, down in that pitch black, chanting some ancient and complex language, reading the words out loud, now wholly exuberant in his own obsession, fully absorbed in the word’s mesmerizing intricacies, its voice coaxing me with soothing, succinct and scientific prose.

“It had ‘that’, you know – that elusive thing shared by all masterful works of art. Something that strikes a chord, stirs something in the depths of your being, that you can’t put into words but you feel it throughout your body; a tantalizing unease. Like the soul’s equivalent of a tiny wound in your mouth, which you can’t stop touching with your tongue.» (76)

NEURAL MECHANISMS OF ANALGESIA - 2

My least favorite of the bunch, and my only two stars here. A neurosurgeon has read a draft of a horror story about an exotic fruit that turns pain signals into pleasure and is providing some unsolicited, scientific feedback. It was interesting, but there was a lot of explaining and less narrative, less atmosphere. A bit too “technical” for my tastes.

THE DOOR - 5

Another banger. Cosmic horror at its finest! Two boys explore the school’s attic and finds, beyond a door, something beyond human apprehension.

“There’s something out there by the school. Something with its own, strange purposes and its own, incomprehensible methods to achieve them. Something else.” (114)

SARAHS FABLES: TWO – 4

I still don’t understand this, but I obviously don’t always need to understand something to enjoy it.

SORROW’S EMBRACE - 4

My goodness! Again, I’m utterly shocked and appalled, but that’s part of the reason I love horror fiction so much. This one’s so bold and poetic and … simply awesome!

“But ever since, horrifying dreams plague me, dreadful nightmares each night. I know I should never have done such a thing. But it is done. And I am aware that what I have done is a crime, so I can talk to no one about it.” (124)

GLORY - 5

Ancient Gods, dark magic, mystical rites and assembling archeological traces of an unknown Neo-Hittite cult. Love it. Glorious!

“The burden of responsibility in a world where magic is real. That I couldn’t fathom. And the cascading consequences of a minor mistake in the infinitely complex system that is the biopsychospiritual essence of life itself, life in this world?” (142)

White noise - 5

A young girl hears some strange noise in her room.

I’m at a loss for words here. I can’t. I just can’t.

“I am these memories, and they may very well be nothing but formlessness and void.” (159)

It’s just that I never really know what to expect from these stories. They’re crossing the lines. Not only that, they’re blurring the lines, staying fixed on one line, drawing a new line, erasing a line completely, drawing new lines on myself, on others… and then the lines come alive and freaks you out!

This type of weird fiction is truly my favorite kind of reading.