31 Days of Stories 2021, Day 1: “Helping” by Robert Stone
In this ironically titled story, the author examines subjects of addiction, masculine violence, and PTSD without ever resorting to easy didacticism.
A Blog About Books and Reading
A Blog About Books and Reading
In this ironically titled story, the author examines subjects of addiction, masculine violence, and PTSD without ever resorting to easy didacticism.
Stories require attention and concentration and often yield their meanings only over time, or in retrospect. But the best stories reward vigilance and repeated reading.
In these tales of mothers, daughters, fathers, and lovers, punk is more attitudinal than aural or political.
Clarke’s story – nominally a comic work – is a piercing examination of the way Canadian capitalism disfavours those who are not white.
The American author’s fiction is too frequently placed in a generic box; her output was much more wide ranging, including pieces like this atypical story.
This story of a man and his malevolent doppelgänger recalls Poe and includes a critique of apparent social respectability.
The story, which originally appeared in 1957, includes a framing structure that distances the reader from the main action.
Of all the genre master’s classic novels and stories, none comes close to the sheer paranoid terror of this ruthless chiller.
Hill’s Gothic tale is an exuberant mashup of Warren Zevon, Little Red Riding Hood, and “An American Werewolf in London.”
The house in the story – a living thing that demands to be fed – is a metaphor for difference and the other.