A review by sisteray
Greener Pastures by Michael Wehunt
5.0
There has always been a blurred line for me between abstract postmodern literature and genre fiction. This collection of weird short stories dips its toe in both pools. Most of these stories are of human’s coping with loss and isolation, with a bizarre backdrop or conceit. Many of these stories could fall more under the category of magical realism than horror depending on the whimsey of the reviewer.
Wehunt’s writing style is really fascinating. He does this teeter-tottering with his sentence structure that starts with one idea and spills into an adjacent concept. He cuts to the chase sometimes merging what would be a paragraph of description for other authors into one see-sawing metaphoric description. So his work shimmies, subverting expectations sentence by sentence, creating a mild dreamlike quality. I really love it.
I joke that Cosmic Horror stories all pretty much end the same ways: the person is consumed/absorbed, the person gets away and is forever scarred, or the person is physically transformed. Wehunt LOVES transformation. The stories didn’t feel at all similar to me but outside of themes of loss, he clearly loves to have normal postmodern approaches to fiction and them does some element of body transformation. I am there for it.
His stories capture those that live on the long stretches of backwoods America; roadside diners, isolated cabins, & small towns. While I legitimately dug all of the stories, the biggest stand out for me was of angels literally falling into a trailer park and the subsequent results.
I highly recommend this.
Wehunt’s writing style is really fascinating. He does this teeter-tottering with his sentence structure that starts with one idea and spills into an adjacent concept. He cuts to the chase sometimes merging what would be a paragraph of description for other authors into one see-sawing metaphoric description. So his work shimmies, subverting expectations sentence by sentence, creating a mild dreamlike quality. I really love it.
I joke that Cosmic Horror stories all pretty much end the same ways: the person is consumed/absorbed, the person gets away and is forever scarred, or the person is physically transformed. Wehunt LOVES transformation. The stories didn’t feel at all similar to me but outside of themes of loss, he clearly loves to have normal postmodern approaches to fiction and them does some element of body transformation. I am there for it.
His stories capture those that live on the long stretches of backwoods America; roadside diners, isolated cabins, & small towns. While I legitimately dug all of the stories, the biggest stand out for me was of angels literally falling into a trailer park and the subsequent results.
I highly recommend this.