cover image HAVOC AFTER DARK: Tales of Terror

HAVOC AFTER DARK: Tales of Terror

Robert Fleming, . . Dafina, $14 (241pp) ISBN 978-0-7582-0575-9

In "Arbeit Macht Frei," the best story in this first collection of short horror fiction, a revelatory moment comes when a black WWII GI compares the atrocities of racial prejudice experienced by blacks in America with those known to survivors from the Auschwitz concentration camp: "I couldn't figure which was worse: the actions of these Nazis killing people in bulk or the lynchings of these cracker white folk still fighting the Civil War." The tacit suggestion that horror is a fiction of victimization that cuts across ethnic boundaries is evident in these 14 tales, whose characters wrestle with issues of racial identity but find themselves confronting horrors that are mostly colorblind. In "The Ultimate Bad Luck," a black man cornered in a bayou by a redneck lynch mob is saved magically by a good deed done in childhood to overlooked residents of the swamp. "Punish the Young Seed of Satan" features an inner-city youth whose grim fate in the criminal justice system is less a horror story than a critique of parental irresponsibility and negligence. Fleming's enthusiasm and passion is evident in the themes and flashy details of his stories. Less obvious is the influence of "Poe, Lovecraft, Hawthorne, Bierce, and Collier," whom he cites in his introduction as his teenage reading. Several of the stories are awkward in their construction, and their turn into horror seems largely an afterthought. Many feature coarse stereotypes that thwart sympathy for their characters. Readers may find much room for improvement here. (Mar. 2)

Forecast: A blurb from T.E.D. Klein may stir a responsive chord with those who fondly remember Twilight Zone magazine. Tananarive Due's foreword will help alert the African-American horror audience.