Back From The Dead: The Legacy of the Pan Book of Horror Stories by Johnny Mains

 The Pan Book of Horror Stories was an iconic and long-running literary institution in Britain for some decades from the 1960s through to the 1980s; to such an extent that I had actually heard of it despite having been born in Australia in 1986! Publishing short horror stories by little-known writers in yearly volumes, it tingled the spines and inspired the nightmares of thousands in its heyday. Back From The Dead is anthologist Johnny Mains’ love letter to the series. He has devotedly selected and compiled these stories along with author anecdotes, a look into the influence of the series and a biography of Herbert Van Thal, the Pan Horrors’ infamous editor.

The stories contained in Back From The Dead are sometimes tame, sometimes gruesome, but all have the haunting quality of eeriness for which the Pan Book of Horror gained its infamy. They are written by authors featured, at some point or other, in the Pan Horror series - sixteen of them are new, previously unpublished tales, and five are classics. The nostalgic format – each story starting off with an author’s anecdote about their experience with the series and with Van Thal, was a real pleasure to read.

Not being much of a genre-reader I have never really delved into horror before and it was an interesting experience. Sometimes I was actually delighted by the types of things that really scared me; such as birds, or children, or deserted islands, or very subtle implications of the macabre. Quiet omens. My favourite stories and the ones which left the biggest impact on me were ones that asked more questions than they answered. Camera Obscura, about a greedy money-lender who visits one of his debtors (an old man who lives in a mysteriously large house on a hill) and peers into his strange, homemade ‘camera obscura’ only to leave the house into a world that isn’t the same one he came from, was one of my favourites. I also loved Mr Smyth, which tells of a policeman investigating the murder of a beautiful young girl who seemed, by all witness accounts, to have been fawning all over a decrepit and penniless old man. But every story selected by Johnny Mains is worth its salt as a soul-chilling, goosebump-inducing tale and if you like a good creep-out then this volume is a decent dose!

I found the 'anthology' format fascinating because the selection of content gives you a little peek into the personality of the anthologist –which is also why the story of Herbert “Bertie” Van Thal contained within is so interesting and deeply explored in Back From The Dead. In this case the selection is devlishly mischievous, somewhat sentimental and just the right balance between gory and charming. In my opinion this dark homage is a love letter, sealed with a scream, to Van Thal and the Pan Horror Series - and couldn’t have been, ahem, executed better.

No one belongs here more than you. Stories by Miranda July

This enchanting collection of short stories (many of them previously published elsewhere) show Miranda July's fascinating perspective, sensitivity, wit and scope of understanding with edginess and vivacity. It confirms what I already thought of her from seeing her film Me and You and Everyone We Know - that she has incredible insight and comprehension of human psyche - and a unique creative voice in her writing.

Every story is touching, deeply personal and often heart-wrenching or hilarious. She always writes in the first person, I notice - possibly a habit carried over from acting? Anyway, her characters tend to delve into fantasy realms in their heads, to avoid the harsh brunt of reality. In one story, a middle-aged man ignores the gay come-on of a colleague by fantasising about said colleague's (non-existant) underage sister. In another, a woman constructs a romance in her head with her epileptic Korean neighbour. One of my favourites tells the story of a girl who is "fucked" by a "dark shape" as a teenager, develops a relationship with the shape and is therefore unable to date actual men. When the dark shape stops visiting her in the night, she breaks her silence and people think she was sexually abused by a family member. She then recognises her 'shape' in the eyes of one of her teenage special needs pupils, and they develop a relationship. All of the stories broke my heart in one way or another - July has a way of delving into the deepest darkest recesses of her characters' minds, and pulling out such profundity it's sometimes scary.

Overall, it made me question our classifications of 'sane' and 'normal' - from reading her narratives it seems everyone is a little bit freaky, everyone has their neurosis... and from this stems the idea that the public world is just one huge mask behind which we all sit twitching with our individual personality tics. I love July for setting me on this train of thought - it's so interesting and one she explores so fearlessly in her work - film, writing, performance or otherwise. This is a gem of book, I urge you to read it and laugh and cry and laugh.

Twilight of the Superheroes by Deborah Eisenberg

The sublet apartment shared by four young singles with one of the most enviable views of New York skyline inadvertently becomes a front seat observation point of the horror of September 11 - planes tearing a rift through the clear morning sky. A gay art dealer tries to come to terms with his genius sister's mental illness. A woman visits her grandmother after she's had a stroke, and tries to find some resemblance to the powerful woman she knew as a child. A naive girl flees the fists of the gun dealer who is her boyfriend, and takes his son with her.

These are just some of the premises of the stories in Twilight of The Superheroes. Deborah Eisenberg has a disjointed way of telling them - her structure is unexpected and unconventional. In the title story, the chapters tesselate and bump into each other until finally, each piece finds its place in the whole (although the story still has a ramshackle feel to it). The confusion invoked relfects perfectly the chaos of the 9/11 aftermath - the detail of which I had never fully considered or understood. I mean the immediate, and the personal. The city being covered with ash; floating pieces of who-knows-what settling on every surface. People hurried past one another in the street, not wanting to make eye contact. Eisenberg brings to light in this story a devestating futility - one that she embodies in her main character's comic strip; PassivityMan.

In another story, Window, the sudden appearance of domestic violence is a shock and a rude awakening - once it happens, we can see it was always there, lurking behind the words. Eisenberg had just crafted them so cleverly it was easily overlooked until the moment of revelation. Her characters are not necessarily likeable but always well-voiced, and like all good short stories, these are condensed so that every word resonates and nothing is there accidentally. I loved the modern, poignant tone of each story, and how different each was from the other. I believe Eisenberg is an award-winning writer, and I think she has lots still to offer if these stories are anything to go by.

Of Cats and Men: stories by Nina de Gramont

This charming book of short stories is not as naff as it's title would have you think - while cats do feature in each of it's 10 stories, they are diverse and not always cutesy characters. The different dynamics of relationships de Gramont explores through her stories is interesting and makes for quirky, touching narratives that are sometimes devastating, sometimes thoughtful and serene, sometimes painful and always quite raw.

My favourite of the stories was about a pregnant woman who has to deal with her mentally ill brother-in-law's presence at a sensitive time in her life. The tension is palpable; de Gramont's style is simple but effective. I had a pure picture in my head of their mountain home, with it's airy rooms and thin walls throughout. I find short story compilations can sometimes be frustrating to read - as I tend to impatiently plough through them as though devouring a novel, rather than taking each story as it's own whole, seeing it in it's own light. De Gramont has made this easier for those like me - her stories are so different and yet meld seamlessly together through the common element of relationships: feline and otherwise. It does help that I am a cat lover because each cat was infused with delightful character; whether it was disdainful, loyal or pretentious. Different breeds and circumstance showed in the stories an understanding of the dynamic a pet can bring to a person's life. The locations also played a large role in the stories' feel: they were often coastal or mountainous and always influenced or mirrored the tone of the story. There are quaint subtleties in de Gramont's simple observations. She evokes a world of beauty and pain in soft tones, easily read and well-remembered.

I guess the best thing about collections of short stories is that you can often pick it up, read a chapter, and put it down again. Personally I am too eager for that, but if you find you don't have time to read whole novels, this is an alternative with my stamp of approval. Of Cats and Men is darling, sweet, entertaining and sits snugly in my memory, curled up like a sleepy, satisfied kitten.