The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 16

What would the horror genre do without Ellen Datlow? Her wealth of experience as an editor and anthologist gives her unique access to a plethora of material. In addition to producing a multitude of themed anthologies, for over a decade and a half she has edited The Best Horror of the Year compilations. It never ceases to astound me that the “summation” section in the annual volumes encompasses so much about the writing in the field. The attributed publications run the gamut from the well-known to indie publishers. I had to smile at the mention of a small press compilation titled No Trouble at All, published by Cursed Morsels Press edited by Alexis Dubon and Eric Raglin. It is described by Datlow as “a very good anthology featuring fifteen new stories about the consequences of compliance/politeness.” That’s certainly an enticing theme for those of us who can relate to that sort of behavior. Following the detailed comprehensive summation of horror fiction in 2023 are the nineteen stories that made the cut as Datlow’s choices for the year’s best. The provided offerings introduced me to several impressive writers whose work I hadn’t previously read. It also elicited that comforting familiarity which comes with reading new writings from established horror authors. There were seven narratives that stayed in my mind after closing the book. For that reason, I will focus on them.

Motherhood and madness are explored in “Dodger” by Carly Holmes. While the theme is not new, Holmes displays a gift for prose that is eloquently jarring. The protagonist is a woman on the edge of unraveling: “Every tiny sound beyond the bedroom door—the house ticking as the day’s heat left it; the night-time creatures rustling in the garden hedge—drove a pin through her carefully controlled breaths and unstitched them; brought her stomach reeling sharply up to the level of her heart, her heart to the level of her mouth. She needed a cigarette. She needed a cigarette. She needed a cigarette.” Her perception of reality crumples in tandem with introspection: “It was as though her true self had become invisible: her sense of who she was, or who she had thought she was, hacked down to no more than a heap of splinters. They could re-form into the rough shape of a person, of her, if squeezed hard enough in a strong enough fist, but they were no longer the original thing.” Such precise aberrant sensations drive this disturbing character study.

Trauma and loneliness are central to the plot of Ray Cluely’s “That Maddening Heat.” The story relates an event from the elderly narrator’s childhood that dramatically altered his life: “Between the two of them, my father and the doctor managed to bring the poor woman out of the well shaft and lay her to the ground. I no longer wanted to see anything of her, but a sharp intake of breath from my father and another profanity from the doctor drew my attention to how the wound beneath her stomach gaped so widely, either from the force of her fall of the state of her decomposition, that she was very nearly split in two and I wondered that they were able to retrieve more than just her upper body.” The youthful observer becomes linked with the woman retrieved from the well, who he had known prior to her demise. Their solitude and anxiety draw them both into an unhealthy seduction.

Now, on to a trio of well-known genre authors whose writing continues to entertain and inspire. Seasoned writer Steve Rasnic Tem’s “R Is for Remains” is a gory little tale concerning a cleaner of grisly crime scenes. The clean-up process is often described in graphic detail and sometimes with an admirable restraint: “The decomp had pooled in places, travelled in rivulets down the hall, created additional pools in other rooms, spread under carpeting. There was contaminated tile and porous grout in the kitchen, and the floor in this room was soft pine not well sealed. The demo crew would have to remove a great deal.” This muted business-as-usual attitude nicely contrasts with stark images of shocking carnage. Tem is the recipient of multiple genre awards, and this year the Horror Writers Association bestowed upon him their Lifetime Achievement Award.

Awards and accolades remain routine in the lengthy career of Ramsey Campbell. His delightfully warped sense of horrific humor is on full display in “The Assembled.” To divulge too much of the plot would be a disservice to the narrative. Suffice to say it involves an eccentric little old lady in a wheelchair and a wayfarer who accepts an offer of transportation from her. The possibilities of the scenario are many, and readers of Campbell’s fiction know that a macabre turn of the screw awaits.

Another perennial favorite horror writer is Caitlín R. Kiernan. In “Build Your Houses with Their Backs to the Sea,” Kiernan delivers a surreal story about an art reviewer attending an avant-garde style exhibit. The presentation has de rigueur odd trappings, such as people wearing phantasmagorical full-face masks, and the screening of a bizarre film which features unnerving sequences. But it goes beyond the anticipated odd art exhibition: “It was a lot worse than weird, it was some sort of goddam sideshow, mad Captain Ahab’s take on Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol.”  There’s a bit of referencing going on in this narrative, including an allusion to the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard. The story’s unusual title may itself be an opaque remembrance of the 1963 episode of television series Route 66 that bore the same name. Or not. With a narrator who could be viewed as unreliable, Kiernan keeps one guessing in this sly fever dream.

The final two tales for discussion are similar in that both address rituals and owe more than passing nods to the 1973 film The Wicker Man and Shirley Jackson’s 1948 story, “The Lottery.” “Hare Moon” by H.V. Patterson is a folk horror yarn based on the pagan holiday of Ostara, which embraces the concepts of renewal and rebirth. Rabbits are among its symbols, and after reading this powerful story I will never again look at the furry critters as cute and benign. The tale that closes the anthology is “The Motley,” written by Charlie Hughes. Featuring an eponymous grotesque entity, the strong and creepy narrative reminded me how rare it is to see an original creature in horror fiction that is profoundly scary. Rather like The Babadook in the 2014 movie of the same name, The Motley is a singular character not easily forgotten. Its enablers are equally chilling because of all too human motivations, especially that of self-preservation. “The Motley” was an excellent choice to occupy the plum place of the anthology’s last tale.

With the end of 2024, it was meaningful to read and to reflect on impactful genre writing of 2023. The indefatigable Ellen Datlow keeps us apprised annually, so here’s a toast to her and to next year’s The Best Horror of the Year.