Number 52 - How Grim Was My Valley - John Llewellyn Probert

 

Continuing my short fiction theme, here is a portmanteau novel by the inimitable Mr John Llewellyn Probert.

A portmanteau novel is basically a selection of short stories linked to make one continuous story. It's a difficult thing to get right. The framing story needs to make it feel like an actual novel. If the framing story isn't strong enough, it just feels like a collection of short stories with a gimmick. Even Bradbury only got it spot on once with Dandelion Wine. IMHO as good as they are, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and From the Dust returned don't feel like novels.

This manages to hit the sweet spot and feels exactly like a written version of the old Amicus movies it's so clearly a love letter to. despite being distinct stories, the framing story is strong enough to bind them all together into one coherent narrative.

That framework follows poor Robert, who wakes up on the welsh side of the border with no money and no memory. As he travels around the landscape of South Wales he hears stories from the people and places he encounters. These stories bring him ever closer to understanding who he is, and what his purpose is.

Of course, no matter how strong the framework, if the stories were weak, that would also kill the book dead, but there isn't a weak tale in here. I'm used to a certain gleeful malevolence in John Probert's short stories, and that is very much in evidence in stories like "Somewhere, Beneath a Maze of Sky", The Devil in the Details", and "The Church With Bleeding Windows". However, he also shows himself capable of some genuinely terrifying and paranoia inducing stories like The Men with Paper Faces which is easily on a par with the best that Ramsey Campbell (who wote the intro to this book) has written.

The Men With Paper Faces is probably my favourite story in the book. The images contained therein are pure nightmare fodder.

The only faults with this book are that there are a couple of annoying mistakes/typos (on one page taught in used in the place of Taut, and there was another similar homonym slip a few pages further on), and  the fact that Bangor, the city I grew up in, is clearly visible on the map in the front of the book, as is Betws Y Coed, but Robert only treks to mid Wales. I really wanted to see a story based on the legends surrounding the local areas but didn't get one.

The stories we do get though, range from very good indeed to excellent to terrifying. and the illustrations are excellent. If you can get your grubby mitts on a copy of this, you need to do so. You won't be disappointed.  The best book yet by the always reliable Dr of Terror himself.