A review by emrysmerlyn
Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons: Stories by Keith Rosson
3.0
Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons from Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
I am pretty sure the title for this anthology was specifically tailored to catch my attention—and it did! Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons? Sign me up!
It didn’t quite meet the expectations I developed from reading the title — it’s a lot heavier on the “trauma” than the “folk songs”
There is some really compelling and interesting imagery throughout, particularly in the stories that contain magical realism. There is also some graphic violence that while also incredibly evocative, was occasionally a little too much for comfort.
I think the problem I ended up having with this collection was the sense that there was a sort of “gleeful meanness” to some of the stories. Something I was struggling to put into words until that phrase itself popped up in one of the stories. There are points were it feels like these stories delight in being unkind when they don’t need to be that way, wielding words like knife intending to cause harm. Another story made this observation: “...she’s seen him pass up numerous opportunities to be cruel, which seems to her a clearly measurable currency in people her age, boys and girls alike.” And afterwards, I felt like that particular currency was one I desperately needed if I was going to finish this collection; I needed coin in the form of cruelty avoided.
(* marks my favorites in this collection)
*THE LESSER HORSEMEN
Fans of Good Omens will probably enjoy one, it has a similarly irreverent approach to the idea of the apocalypse and the four horsemen. However, there is something surreal and unnerving about Pestilence sitting on a cruise ship in forced semi-retirement and lamenting to the devil that the last time he was truly great was during the Spanish Influenza a hundred years ago. You know, given everything about the last year.
“Call Him whatever you want: The Good Lord, Jehovah, Yahweh, The Beginning and The End, God; we loved Him and we feared Him, and perhaps it was intentional but when He was in human form, we were also a bit disgusted by Him.” This god is gross and also a douche.
*AT THIS TABLE
Second person POV, which is unusual, along with a deliberate and matter of fact tone that sets a *vibe* that is so distant and uncomfortable—not as a criticism, but as a tonal and structural choice that is really interesting to see. It’s a ghost story and the end of a love story. “In the spirit—no pun intended—of pure kindness, something the living so rarely manage, he’s trying to give you the opportunity for a different ending.”
(warning for internalized homophobia)
BABY JILL
“The room is empty save for the tens of thousands of teeth carpeting the floor. Mounds of them. Hills and valleys of little pale teeth. The room is not particularly big, but still.”
The tooth fairy is having a moral crisis; how much can you witness without reaching out to try to help.
(warning for death of a child and implied child abuse)
THEIR SOULS CLIMB THE ROOM
“At night he could feel the souls of all the dead hogs pressing on his chest, pressing down on his ribcage like something real. A near-tangible weight that he could nearly touch. All those souls pinning him to the mattress, pressing down on the animal meat of his heart.”
(warning for drug use, animal cruelty, and gore)
*HOSPITALITY
A series of vignettes situated around a failing motel.
(warning for torture and gun violence)
THIS WORLD OR THE NEXT
Traveling revival/faith healer style religious spectacle. Some pretty lines, but little plot.
(warning for self harm)
GIFTS
I disapprove of killing women in stories simply to fuel some misplaced man pain. Otherwise a perfectly good dystopian apocalypse. Honestly, I think the story would have worked better in many ways if she wasn’t killed. Open with a breakup and not a murder: Struggling through a breakup at the end of the world is interesting—like watching the world end on multiple fronts.
*COYOTE
Upsetting is the word. Two brothers, in the aftermath.
YES, WE ARE DULY CONCERNED WITH CALAMITOUS EVENTS
“Twenty-three days after the world kind of ends, we all watch as Human Resources Randy strangles the temp with a mouse cord.” The words all hit the tone for comedy while the content dives fairly heavily into horror. And this story starts off strong. The , unfortunately, there is a truly disgusting section where it talks about a disabled child and “how hard it might be to love her in her shunted, curled little body and pink wheelchair,” and I was so grossed out by that bit of ableism I couldn’t finish this story for a long time. I almost put the book down entirely during this one. See, being “offensive” on purpose is more or less fine, occasionally effective, and usually more than a little flat, but still more or less a commonly accepted way to show off the broken bits of society. Satire shows love to do it. It’s usually not great, but you see it and people use it and it’s...fine. But, there is also a point where using politically incorrect language as a weapon feels vindictive and spiteful and so unproductive, as though the only goal of the words is to cause harm rather than to provide any kind of insight at all. The words in this story means to cause harm.
WINTER, SPRING, WHATEVER HAPPENS AFTER THAT
This is a really well written story about a pair of children whose mother has abandoned them with their alcoholic father. It is painfully realistic in a way that doesn’t really fit in with the other stories in this collection, which almost all have at least a hint of magical realism. I do think the structure of the story is hurt by the open ending; a stronger conclusion would have served better.
(Warnings for homophobic language and child abuse)
FORGIVE ME THIS
2nd person POV? I don’t know, a weird choice with no particular pay off that makes the POV choice worth it. Also has incesty vibes.
DUNSMUIR
A slice of life for an alcoholic going through rehab while his pregnant girlfriend copes with the murder of her sister.
(Warnings for addiction, alcoholism, domestic violence)
*HOMECOMING
“You really are trying hard to hold on, aren’t you?” he gasped, “Just hanging on tight as you can to the skin of the world.”
This is a really weird one, that starts off with some light magical realism, but by the end and before you have a chance to adjust you’ve been boiled in to something a lot more from and deeply fantastic.
THE MELODY OF THE THING
“The fan creaked back and forth, pushed our misery around the room.”
OK so this one has this really viscerally upsetting graphic violence where where a former ufc fighter just destroys a man the street who tried to intervene in a domestic violence dispute and then the story details the painstaking recovery from horrifying injuries that resulted. It is graphic and it left me with a sour feeling in the pit of my stomach.
BRAD BENSKE AND THE HAND OF LIGHT
“Splay-legged in my recliner, I’ve just returned from putting another note under Marcus’s door (In the next life your penis shall be multipronged, insectile, hot and bristling with pustules, gloriously prone to infection)”
I am pretty sure the title for this anthology was specifically tailored to catch my attention—and it did! Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons? Sign me up!
It didn’t quite meet the expectations I developed from reading the title — it’s a lot heavier on the “trauma” than the “folk songs”
There is some really compelling and interesting imagery throughout, particularly in the stories that contain magical realism. There is also some graphic violence that while also incredibly evocative, was occasionally a little too much for comfort.
I think the problem I ended up having with this collection was the sense that there was a sort of “gleeful meanness” to some of the stories. Something I was struggling to put into words until that phrase itself popped up in one of the stories. There are points were it feels like these stories delight in being unkind when they don’t need to be that way, wielding words like knife intending to cause harm. Another story made this observation: “...she’s seen him pass up numerous opportunities to be cruel, which seems to her a clearly measurable currency in people her age, boys and girls alike.” And afterwards, I felt like that particular currency was one I desperately needed if I was going to finish this collection; I needed coin in the form of cruelty avoided.
(* marks my favorites in this collection)
*THE LESSER HORSEMEN
Fans of Good Omens will probably enjoy one, it has a similarly irreverent approach to the idea of the apocalypse and the four horsemen. However, there is something surreal and unnerving about Pestilence sitting on a cruise ship in forced semi-retirement and lamenting to the devil that the last time he was truly great was during the Spanish Influenza a hundred years ago. You know, given everything about the last year.
“Call Him whatever you want: The Good Lord, Jehovah, Yahweh, The Beginning and The End, God; we loved Him and we feared Him, and perhaps it was intentional but when He was in human form, we were also a bit disgusted by Him.” This god is gross and also a douche.
*AT THIS TABLE
Second person POV, which is unusual, along with a deliberate and matter of fact tone that sets a *vibe* that is so distant and uncomfortable—not as a criticism, but as a tonal and structural choice that is really interesting to see. It’s a ghost story and the end of a love story. “In the spirit—no pun intended—of pure kindness, something the living so rarely manage, he’s trying to give you the opportunity for a different ending.”
(warning for internalized homophobia)
BABY JILL
“The room is empty save for the tens of thousands of teeth carpeting the floor. Mounds of them. Hills and valleys of little pale teeth. The room is not particularly big, but still.”
The tooth fairy is having a moral crisis; how much can you witness without reaching out to try to help.
(warning for death of a child and implied child abuse)
THEIR SOULS CLIMB THE ROOM
“At night he could feel the souls of all the dead hogs pressing on his chest, pressing down on his ribcage like something real. A near-tangible weight that he could nearly touch. All those souls pinning him to the mattress, pressing down on the animal meat of his heart.”
(warning for drug use, animal cruelty, and gore)
*HOSPITALITY
A series of vignettes situated around a failing motel.
(warning for torture and gun violence)
THIS WORLD OR THE NEXT
Traveling revival/faith healer style religious spectacle. Some pretty lines, but little plot.
(warning for self harm)
GIFTS
I disapprove of killing women in stories simply to fuel some misplaced man pain. Otherwise a perfectly good dystopian apocalypse. Honestly, I think the story would have worked better in many ways if she wasn’t killed. Open with a breakup and not a murder: Struggling through a breakup at the end of the world is interesting—like watching the world end on multiple fronts.
*COYOTE
Upsetting is the word. Two brothers, in the aftermath.
YES, WE ARE DULY CONCERNED WITH CALAMITOUS EVENTS
“Twenty-three days after the world kind of ends, we all watch as Human Resources Randy strangles the temp with a mouse cord.” The words all hit the tone for comedy while the content dives fairly heavily into horror. And this story starts off strong. The , unfortunately, there is a truly disgusting section where it talks about a disabled child and “how hard it might be to love her in her shunted, curled little body and pink wheelchair,” and I was so grossed out by that bit of ableism I couldn’t finish this story for a long time. I almost put the book down entirely during this one. See, being “offensive” on purpose is more or less fine, occasionally effective, and usually more than a little flat, but still more or less a commonly accepted way to show off the broken bits of society. Satire shows love to do it. It’s usually not great, but you see it and people use it and it’s...fine. But, there is also a point where using politically incorrect language as a weapon feels vindictive and spiteful and so unproductive, as though the only goal of the words is to cause harm rather than to provide any kind of insight at all. The words in this story means to cause harm.
WINTER, SPRING, WHATEVER HAPPENS AFTER THAT
This is a really well written story about a pair of children whose mother has abandoned them with their alcoholic father. It is painfully realistic in a way that doesn’t really fit in with the other stories in this collection, which almost all have at least a hint of magical realism. I do think the structure of the story is hurt by the open ending; a stronger conclusion would have served better.
(Warnings for homophobic language and child abuse)
FORGIVE ME THIS
2nd person POV? I don’t know, a weird choice with no particular pay off that makes the POV choice worth it. Also has incesty vibes.
DUNSMUIR
A slice of life for an alcoholic going through rehab while his pregnant girlfriend copes with the murder of her sister.
(Warnings for addiction, alcoholism, domestic violence)
*HOMECOMING
“You really are trying hard to hold on, aren’t you?” he gasped, “Just hanging on tight as you can to the skin of the world.”
This is a really weird one, that starts off with some light magical realism, but by the end and before you have a chance to adjust you’ve been boiled in to something a lot more from and deeply fantastic.
THE MELODY OF THE THING
“The fan creaked back and forth, pushed our misery around the room.”
OK so this one has this really viscerally upsetting graphic violence where where a former ufc fighter just destroys a man the street who tried to intervene in a domestic violence dispute and then the story details the painstaking recovery from horrifying injuries that resulted. It is graphic and it left me with a sour feeling in the pit of my stomach.
BRAD BENSKE AND THE HAND OF LIGHT
“Splay-legged in my recliner, I’ve just returned from putting another note under Marcus’s door (In the next life your penis shall be multipronged, insectile, hot and bristling with pustules, gloriously prone to infection)”