| Title | : | 13 Views of the Suicide Woods |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 177148411X |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781771484114 |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 280 |
| Publication | : | First published April 4, 2017 |
Bracken MacLeod is the author of Mountain Home, White Knight, and, most recently, Stranded, which has been optioned by Warner Horizon Television. He lives in New England with his wife and son.
13 Views of the Suicide Woods Reviews
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This is my first go around with author Bracken MacLeod but it certainly will not be my last. I have his latest novel, Come to Dust on my nightstand and I will definitely be buying his Stoker award nominated book, Stranded.
13 Views is an anthology of short stories, most of which had been published before but three or four of them were brand new for the collection.
I've said it before but I'll mention it again now, I'm a short story addict. I can sit and clear an anthology in one sitting just because I love hopping from one feeling to the next and this book is the PERFECT book for that. All of these tales evoke different emotions-I was terrified, disgusted, haunted and even saddened to the point of tears on a few of these.
Most notably was the story, This Last Little Piece of Darkness. This story was written in a letter format, first person narrative and in just a few short pages, Bracken had gut punched me and left me feeling pretty somber. (I'm not crying, YOU are!)
Some of my stand out favorites in this collection are:
Something I Said, about a man looking for a fight in a bar. The narrative voice really grabbed me. It was punchy and raw.
Ciudad de los Ninos was another favorite-a man risks his life looking for his little girl in a creepy village of orphans protected by their "mother". I love that Bracken doesn't pull any punches--if he wants to end a story by slapping you across the face, then dammit, he's going to do it and don't snivel about it afterwards.
The Boy Who Dreamt He Was a Bat had this sense of foreboding where you're asking yourself, do I want to get invested in this character? Braken is trying to make me feel something but he's going to pull the rug out I know it!
Blood Makes the Grass Grow, Some Other Time, Mine Not Yours and In the Bones were all favorites-especially the endings.
Lastly, a fun tale was The Texas Chainsaw Breakfast Club or I Hate Mondays. This was a clever mash up of some favorite tropes pulled from classics that we all know and love but with MacLeod's unique way of story weaving. Truly, the man can spin a good yarn and in very little time. His characters are all very fleshed out, detailed descriptions and good use of setting immerse the reader into the story right away. Dialogue is a clear wheelhouse of his as well. I'm *really* looking forward to reading more of his books! -
By now most people who read my reviews are probably aware that I adore short stories. I read collections all in one go, jumping from story to story to get a real feel for the collection as a whole. I think most of my friends tend to pick up short story collections or anthologies and dip in to stories in between other books, but I like to give a collection my full attention. This one definitely deserved it.
The stories in 13 Views of the Suicide Woods caused me to run the gamut of emotions. As always, some of these stories resonated more with me than others. The Boy Who Dreamt He Was a Bat was heartbreaking. The image of Bobby's library book floating off in the water hit a nerve. Blood Makes the Grass Grow is a story that takes a drastic and grisly turn at the end. Some Other Time is a story about deception and desire. The Texas Chainsaw Breakfast Club or I Don't Like Mondays fuses the worlds of two cult movie classics in a clever style. This one was totally unexpected, even with though the title basically gives the whole thing away. This Last Little Piece of Darkness is like the short story version of a slap to the face. It's absolutely brutal. And Reminisce is a creepy little story about not trusting strangers. You never know what people are up to behind closed doors.
This is such a diverse collection of stories, I highly recommend it to everyone who loves horror collections. There's something here for everyone's horror tastes. -
I was a fan of Bracken MacLeod's recent novel, Stranded, so my interest was piqued considerably when his short story collection 13 Views of the Suicide Woods was announced.
At times, 13 Views feels a bit unbalanced due to MacLeod's growth and maturation as an author. The stories, many of them previously published and a few that are seeing print for the first time here, go back to 2011. The title story was first published by Shock Totem in 2014, and sets a high water mark for the stories that follow. Not all of these stories reach the heights of success MacLeod demonstrates in this opening volley, but there are certainly some strong works of dark fiction, and even a few that are markedly superior in my estimation.
I'm not going to dwell on the stories that I did not enjoy. Instead, I'll point out some of my favorites here:
The Texas Chainsaw Breakfast Club or I Don't Like Mondays wears its inspiration right on its sleeve. A group of students with disparate backgrounds (a la The Breakfast Club's band of misfits) have been kidnapped by a killer, one of them run through a meat hook and hanging from the basement rafters, and it's up to the Final Girl to save them. It's a short story with a good dose of style and makes for an effective mash-up between two iconic movies that pretty well defined a generation of cinephiles.
Some Other Time involves a woman discovering her boyfriend cheating on her on the dance floor of a club. She meets an intriguing stranger and... I won't say anything further, because, as with Blood of the Vine so much of this story rides on the excellent reveal.
Other stories, like In The Bones, take more of a dark fiction/crime approach, while Sky Burial plays with some Western revenge tropes. Both are wonderfully drawn stories, and like the above-named shorts, showcase MacLeod's talent for creating strong characters in a short amount of time. The best examples of these talents, though, comes in the collection's final story, Reminisce, about a homeless veteran with a big heart, who attempts to help a family who lost their child. There's a twist of course, and MacLeod proves over the course of these seventeen short stories that he's more than adept at completely upending a story with some unique, batshit crazy revelations.
On balance, 13 Views of the Suicide Woods is a pretty strong collection. There are a few weak links here and there (as is the case with virtually any collection or anthology), but the good stories herein are really, really good, and more than make it worth the price of admission.
[Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from the publisher, ChiZine Press.] -
In Bracken MacLeod’s first collection, 13 Views of the Suicide Woods, the writer behind Stoker-nominee Stranded and the novel Mountain Home presents 19 stories that are a little too genre-gritty to be “literary”, but also too literary to be full-on genre fare. MacLeod straddles the line between brutal violence–the don’t-assume-hippies-are-pacifists “Blood Makes the Grass Grow”–and haunting melancholy–the near-flash piece “Khatam” that closes the book. When the supernatural comes into the story–it doesn’t always–it’s seamless and unobtrusive, almost as if it’s expected to be there. In other words, if Jim Thompson or Shane Stevens were to write the current genre-darling of the reading class, magic realism, they might write something like 13 Views of the Suicide Woods.
This is not my first exposure to MacLeod. As such, I had an inkling of what to expect. Still, however, a reader can marvel at the way MacLeod offers a triptych of viewpoints in collection opener “Still Day: An Ending”–more of a set-piece that a full story–between mundane modern life, natural beauty, and stark violence. Personal favorite “The Boy Who Dreamt He Was a Bat”–doesn’t grind its message and subtext in the reader’s face, but it’s there if you want it.
If literature is a kind of never-ending buffet, with each little marketing-invented subgroup given its own table for its food, MacLeod’s work bounces between noir, full-on horror, and magic realism. Often, the characters are more important than the plot (which doesn’t mean that plot doesn’t take place), examining the reactions they have to whatever situation they find themselves in. MacLeod is interested in this–an examination of reaction in the moment something happens. He does this without any melodramatic panting and ruminations, not focusing on the before and the aftermath, but that very moment itself, leaving the reader to surmise how (or if) these people recovered from the situation, and when a story lingers (many do) it’s because of this fact.
The stories might not be for everyone–MacLeod goes out of his way to avoid beating anyone over the head and his subtlety might be off-putting to someone looking for gore and violence with both barrels. When violence does come–in the previously mentioned stories, or in “The Texas Chainsaw Breakfast Club, or, I Don’t Like Mondays”–it is all the more shocking because MacLeod doesn’t telegraph it; he’s not the writer who’s going to hype the awful that’s coming.
Still, though, each of the 19 stories in this collection shines with its own light, distinguishing itself from the others and never becoming that dread of collections–the blurring from one story to the next. Any one of these could make a reader a fan of Bracken MacLeod and force them to track down his longer works. -
The title for this book can sound quite deceiving. It bears no relation to the Japanese suicide forest, Aokigahara, but is actually an assortment of short stories by Bracken Macleod with one of the stories similar to the Aokigahara forest.
While some of the stories seem quite short and uninviting to begin with, as soon as I hit "Something I said?" I was hooked.
Macleod has clearly put a lot of thought into the order in which these stories play out, a book beginning with death and ending in life. The style in which Macleod writes is always filled with emotion, darkness, horror, and these stories definitely have something to suit everyone. -
2.5 Another one of those short story collections that trudges along in mediocrity. Not really horror but rather stories about people facing dark, difficult and disturbing situations. A couple of standouts but mostly meh. Rating for each:
1. Still Day: An Ending - 2/5
2. Something I Said? - 2.5/5
3. Pure Blood and Evergreen - 2/5
4. Ciudad de los Ninos - 2.5/5
5. The Blood and the Body - 3/5
6. The Boy Who Dreamt He Was a Bat -3/5
7. Blood Makes the Grass Grow - 4/5 (Hippies’ revenge)
8. Some Other Time - 1/5
9. Morgenstern’s Last Act - 3/5
10. All Dreams Die in the Morning - 3.5/5
11. Mine, Not Yours - 3/5
12. Thirteen Views of the Suicide Woods - 2.5/5
13. The Texas Chainsaw Breakfasr Club - 3/5
14. In the Bones - 4/5 (‘Til death do us part)
15. Blood of the Vine - 3/5
16. Looking for the Death Trick - 2/5
17. The Last Little Piece of Darkness - 3/5
18. Reminisce - 2/5
19. Khatam - 1/5 -
Every once in a while I read something that hits me, hard. Most recently it was 13 Views of the Suicide Woods by Bracken MacLeod. This was my first time reading anything by MacLeod (although I own Come to Dust) and while I was expecting horror stories, I was not expecting to feel so emotional! Most of these stories force you to face your own morality. Also, many focused on the relationships (or lack thereof) between a child and a parent which was hard for me to read without making it personal.
The first story in this collection, Still Day: An Ending, on the surface might seem dull as not much of anything actually happens, but it was an anxiety inducing yet beautifully written tale that perfectly set the stage for all the subsequent stories. This story, All Dreams Die in the Morning, and the title story 13 Views of the Suicide Woods really coerce the reader into examining their own life and inescapable death. Admittedly, that is a point of anxiety for me and I would have liked to look away but MacLeod draws you in with such poignant language it's impossible not to finish.
The Boy Who Dreamt He Was a Bat, Mine, Not Yours, This Last Little Piece of Darkness, and Khatam really crawled under my skin and gnawed away at me. They were completely different stories yet each packed such an emotional punch and tears were shed. I don't want to say that a parent will feel more than others from these stories but a parent will definitely feel something (heartache, overwhelming sadness, an urge to go hug their children etc). MacLeod just breaking my heart yet I'll let him every time!
13 Views of the Suicide Woods as a whole was heavy and bleak yet dignified and well written. MacLeod hooks you from the onset and doesn't let up until the very last page. I have a feeling I'll be packing my bookshelves with everything he's written and everything he will write in the future.
Thank you ChiZine Publications for a copy in exchange for an honest review. -
Unnerving Magazine Review
Thirteen Views of the Suicide Woods opens with the title tale, a somber, bleak story of a bush busy with folks seeking out the end of the road. It might be my favorite of the lot.
There’s rhythm to Bracken MacLeod’s writing, a style inching towards literary while still scratching to remain true to his wide cast of characters and all the walks they convey. There are a few incidents of redundancy where characters or circumstances of unrelated stories seem to stroll nearly identical lines. Under gloomy skies, these characters are people at their worst, or itching for their worst. Happiness seems like a myth in the worlds herein, that is right until comeuppance or revenge meet their victims, and even then there are only the poisonous sorts of smiles.
On the whole, this is a compelling collection of dark literature, leaning toward crime and horror. Aside from the title story, The Texas Chainsaw Breakfast Club or I don’t like Mondays (pretty much what the initial title suggests, really), Blood of the Vine (a Harvest Home kind of tale about a sleepy town and its offerings), Blood Makes the Grass Grow (a revenge/comeuppance jaunt about some folks not to be fudged with), and In the Bones (the story of a broken relation not quite on the mend) are the standouts of this collection.
13 Views of the Suicide Woods is wholly readable, and at several parts consuming and highly entertaining. The blood is heavy and it is often. There’s much more to like than dislike, and that’s by a long toss. -
The nineteen stories in this collection will tap nearly every emotion you might have. MacLeod doesn't pull any punches and although there are stories that deserve a fist pump, he will do it with a heavy dose of darkness. At least one story will break your heart because it is so visceral and another will leave you shaken to the core because it reminds you of what you've lost or might have lost. This is not an anthology for those who love happy endings or can't stomach the reality of childhood or the hopelessness of relationships. It is, however, a book that will comfort some, upset others and educate a few. Some people won't like the harshness of a story or two but for those who have lived a similar horror, it will be a comfort to know that they are understood and the dark places they inhabit are not empty. Sometimes writing the thing you know best is more of a purge than a celebration; a cleansing and an unburdening. This isn't an easy book by any means but it speaks to issues we often keep hidden and shouldn't. It offers empathy to those who might feel that no one could possibly understand. Even though it made me cry, I highly recommend it.
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The art of the short story is a difficult one. A compressed tale has one of two potentials: to go well or to go poorly. Generally, collections of shorter fiction contained a mixed bag of successes and failures. For readers, fortunately, Bracken MacLeod doesn't seem to know how to fail. In this collection of tales, the majority of which have been previously published, MacLeod manages to do everything from terrify to tear at your heart. The collection touches on issues such as child abuse, love, murder, parenting and the human condition.
With characters that seem to be crafted from the men, women and children we all know so well, each tale puts a human face to suffering - both physical and emotional.
If you're in need of a sleepless night because you're reading something you can't put down, take a stroll with MacLeod through the suicide woods. -
3.5 stars
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Would you believe that the book isn't nearly as uplifting as its title would suggest? Still, it's pretty good. As a short-story writer, MacLeod hunts in some pretty familiar terrain, namely people in bad situations which they make worse with some poor decision. Otessa Moshfegh, anyone? Patricia Highsmith, maybe? Nonetheless, MacLeod's enjoyably sick imagination renders his protagonists' desperate circumstances fresh and vivid (the bisexual goth chick in "The Blood and the Body" who gets dragged to a coven meeting is especially fun), and there's just something bracing and real in the way his characters make stunningly stupid choices with nary a paragraph of introspection. They aren't deluded, they aren't in denial, they're just suffer from instantaneous situational stupidity. Lest you believe that Mr. MacLeod is a nihilist, I should add that a couple of the stories have happy, or at least hopeful, endings -- after several pages' worth of graphic violence. This guy can stay in our spare room when he's in town, but I'm keeping my bedroom door locked.
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A strong voice produced this confidently odd set of stories. Macleod can conjure characters, twist plots, and simply terrify in just a few pages. Can’t wait to read more from him. Love these Canadian horror folks!
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fine collection from a great storyteller.
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Bracken MacLeod normally provides a knockout punch, this one is a series of small jabs
I first fell in love with MacLeod's great book
Stranded, which knocked me over. I spent a few months recovering from that, reading non-fiction or even books like
A Shore Thing.
But MacLeod's pull brought me back, to the great
Come To Dust and his collection of short stories here.
This one was tougher than his normal work, because it is not one punch - it is many small ones. Each tale threatens to knock you out, and some do.
Here are the highlighted tales though -
The Last Little Piece of Darkness - this is my favorite tale of the collection. It's a letter that quickly takes an odd turn, and then reveals its twist at the end.
All Dreams Die in the Morning - this one has the most emotional impact. Be warned, it's not easy.
Blood Makes the Grass Grow - this holds a little action, but still has that MacLeod feel.
Mine, Not Yours - This one goes up and down
In the Bones - A tale of a relationship so dysfunctional even
Nathan Ballingrud would shake his head.
Blood of the Vine - A fun one, sort of!
Regardless - great tales. I highly recommend it! -
Dear God, this collection was fantastic. Every story and character within are so grounded in reality. I kept waiting for things to go supernatural, they were framed perfectly for it, but the supernatural never really shows up. At least, not in any direct way; one or two stories leave it kind of ambiguous in a spot, but man. MacLeod doesn't need ghosts and fantasy monsters and spiritual powers to bring all-encompassing horror and pain to the page.
I kept turning the page to see the story I'd been reading ended way earlier than I expected (just peeking), but then would be surprised by one twist ending after another, each perfectly executed, and left me feeling dumb for thinking the story could end any other way.
My first reading of anything by MacLeod. It will not be my last.
Favorite stories:
'Something I Said?'
'The Boy Who Dreamt He Was a Bat'
'This Last Little Piece of Darkness' -
A really strong, widely varied, and yet somehow powerfully cohesive collection. I love how these are all horror stories, but with this strong, neo-noir human element binding them together--the existential terror of living here, side by side, together, in an unforgiving world; that's a really unique take on the genre, and I commend Mr. MacLeod for having produced it.
Here were my favorites in no particular order: Something I Said?; Ciudad de los Ninos; The Blood and the Body; Blood Makes the Grass Grow (fantastic! this was by far my favorite!); Looking for the Death Trick (another favorite!). -
i'm either in the mood for short stories, or i'm not... and even when i am they have to be pretty damned good to have me finish the entire collection the same day... these are those stories, and this is that collection... wow... grisly, dark, evil, sweaty, vile, nasty... i knew the endings before i got there and they still shocked me sometimes... others completely threw me, in ways i hadn't expected but simply loved... 'Stranded' was great, these are better... dark, darker, and just fucking dark...
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Short stories with a sometimes disturbing twist - or the other way around: Disturbing situations with a good twist. Nothing really special here, I feel like I've read all of it before and the writing style is mediocre. I liked two or three of them, but just because I liked the twist. The stories are mostly about murder, kidnapping or people acting violent.
Apart from that: It's not the fault of the author, but these have nothing to do with the Suicide Woods, "13 Views of the Suicide Woods" is just one of the stories. -
I finished this a few days ago and forgot to write a review right away- already the majority of these stories have slipped away from clear memory. Many of them were quite enjoyable, but ... I cannot remember why. Forgive me. I've read a lot of horror fiction this month.
I will say that many of them were rather short, even for short fiction and seemed a bit more like sketches that fully formed stories. I like MacLeod, but this wasn't a collection that will forever writhe beneath my skin.... -
I thought every short story in this collection was varied and interesting. It reminded me of the first time I read splatterpunk, the feeling of the boundries being pushed in fiction, for having a little more gore for your buck. If done well I think it has a place in books. Admittedly sometimes it feels forced and more like torture porn which can make a story less. I thought each one here was great. Really impressed by this author.
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What a strong collection of stories. I know I maybe sound like a broken record with “this collection has changed my mind” on short stories, but all of these were so different and spooky in their own ways.
I don’t want to spoil any of the stories so I’m just going to say you should check this collection out. This was the first book of MacLeod’s I’ve read and I’ll definitely be searching out more. -
Normally not a fan of anthologies, but these have stories that are connected to each other and man is this creepy! This is one of those stories where the scares just sneak up on you which makes it even better! For more subtle and all too human scares, this is the book to read if you want to spend an evening.
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"13 Views of the Suicide Woods" will punch you in your gut and twist your insides out, reminding you that the world is anything but a safe place. It's that good.
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This has been a fascinating walk through the mind of author MacLeod. I shall miss being there. The stories are extremely well-written and unpredictable, each one a dark little gem. Loved it and highly recommend to fans of short horror fiction. Looking forward to another collection from Mr MacLeod.
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3 stars. Full review to appear on my blog.
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The kind of short story collection that makes other writers take pause, exhale deeply and think to themselves, "Damn, I need to step up my game."
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13 Views of the Suicide Woods is an excellent collection of horror and dark fantasy that speaks as much about human monsters as it does supernatural ones. Here you'll find noir-ish tales of revenge and redemption, and familiar worlds swiftly turned upside down. The writing style is engrossing- once started I found this difficult to put down- and the stories within are frequently violent and bleak, but not without tenderness or for that matter humour, which is conveyed skilfully and believably in the writing. Some standouts are the intro Still Day: An Ending, which sets the tone for the whole collection perfectly, Something I Said?, The Boy Who Dreamt He Was a Bat, Blood Makes the Grass Grow, Looking for the Death Trick and title story, Thirteen Views of the Suicide Woods. Having said that, I enjoyed all the stories in the collection and if you give them a try you will too.
