Paul goes to visit his elderly Aunt Rose and Uncle Conrad in New Hampshire. He spent many happy holidays during his youth with his brothers and sisters at their farm in Purmort. His parents ask him to spend a few days at the farm after his uncle had an accident, resulting in a very serious head injury. A rotten beam in the barn had fallen on him.
When Paul arrives it is raining, and the downpour continues throughout his visit. Paul notices that the constant rain is gradually eroding away dirt around the old oak tree on the river bank. The longer he stays, the more he notices small things that make him wonder if the couple are hiding things from him.
The ending is somewhat unexpected and chilling. An excellent story.
This story is part of a collection of short stories by DuBois, The Dark Snow and Other Mysteries, published by Crippen & Landru.
I also read a few other stories in the book. Some of those focused on revenge and most of them had very dark endings. This was true of the title story, "The Dark Snow", which is very well done, a great read, but the ending so very dark that it turned me off. I think maybe it is just that I am not in the mood for that right now. I will wait a few months before I read the rest of the stories in the book.
12 comments:
Oh, that does sound really eerie, Tracy! And the rain, I'm sure, just adds to the tension, since that tends to coop people up together. I can see how you got drawn into this one!
Very odd sounding bunch of stories. Sometimes you're in the mood for that kind of thing and sometimes you're not. I've just read a long short story where a man gets marooned in the Arctic and spends years floating around on an iceberg with a pet polar bear. It's in one of the British Library 'weird' collections. I was going to say that I can't work out why it's in a collection of weird stories but when I wrote it down to describe to you I realised it probably was not entirely normal....
Margot, all the stories in this book were good, but some too dark for me. This one still had an edge, but was more to my taste.
Cath, all the stories I have read from this book so far were set in New Hampshire, or some place that sounded very much the same. I liked the setting but all were fairly dark. Brendan DuBois also wrote a series set in New Hampshire and I read the first book in that series and want to read more.
The short story you describe does sound weird to me. I do like to read about cold environments though.
It really makes a difference what you are in the mood for.
Really worried about Santa Barbara. Hope you are all okay.
That is so true, Patti. I knew I liked Brendan Dubois' writing so I kept trying to find a story in the book I could get along with.
The Santa Barbara area has been hit pretty bad, but mainly on the Montecito end, where all the burn areas are. I hope the break between storms that we are having now will help alleviate that when the next rains come through. There were lots of road closures (which happens a lot when we have weather or fires), and I am sure that caused a lot of grief for people who needed to get in or out of the area.
Where we live is on the other side of Santa Barbara, and we personally felt little effect from the storms. Per recommendations, we stayed home and did not get out in the car after the weather got bad. Yesterday we were supposed to have thunderstorms all day, but when it was sunny instead, we ventured out to buy groceries in preparation for more rain on Friday or Saturday.
Hi Tracy This is the first I am hearing of the author Brendan Dubois and I am intrigued. The story in which Paul visits his elderly Aunt and Uncle sounds very atmospheric and there is a great deal of the gothic in places like New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, the New England states. But totally agree that one has to be in the right mood for books and short stories.
Also, since this is a Crippen & Landru book, a small press that provides to a specialized audience who will almost certainly know Dubois's work pretty well before seeking it out, no perceived need to leaven the loaf too much! Then again, from my three years of living in New Hampshire, a litany of grimness sounds about right...even if I did first start collecting fiction magazines there...
Glad the "atmosphere river" didn't mess you over too badly...my sister in San Francisco has presumably not gotten the worst of it, either, but I'll be calling tonight, or at least emailing.
I'm in the process of writing a ridiculously involved SSW that I might actually post on Friday, with such crime fiction writers as Robert Bloch, Margaret St. Clair and Cornell Woolrich involved...the last, of course, being among the Kings of the Bleak...
Kathy, I had not thought about the gothic atmosphere in this story. The others were not like that. If you ever get a chance to read his Lewis Cole series set in New Hampshire, my experience with that was good.
I was surprised to have a bad reaction to some of his stories, because I had read one other story from this book, about arson in a small town, and it was pretty grim but I liked it. So, it all comes back to my mood at the time, I guess.
Todd, When I bought the book, I got it at a bookstore and I was not familiar with the author. But I read one of the stories and liked it, and then moved on to reading the first novel in the Lewis Cole series. I have read another of his stories from Crippen & Landru's anniversary book, Silver Bullets: "A Battlefield Reunion". I don't remember it being that dark.
Re the weather in California, I am glad that we have not had problems from the rain, but it is worrisome to hear how much some areas have been damaged. Montecito has had so many problems since the last really big fire that came so close to them.
I look forward to your SSW post. I have a couple of books of short stories by Cornell Woolrich, I need to read some stories from them.
I have enjoyed every book I've ever purchased from Crippen & Landru! They are one of my favorite Small Presses! Thank for that excellent review!
George, I wish I had subscribed to the books as they were published from Crippen & Landru. I am thinking of doing that this year.
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