[Review] - Fear of Free Standing Objects
Fear Of Free Standing Objects
Doug Rinaldi
Published by Mayhem Media
What are you afraid of? What keeps you up at night? There is a pretty damn good chance it is in this book. This book covers just about everything. There is Lovecraftian apocalyptic scenarios, twisted religious creations, saying goodbye to a parent, an villainous secret society, a haunted bookstore, plague, murder for hire, extreme body modification, sex trafficking, and dream control.
In "The Yattering" (a story about a haunted book store), the author writes from someone that is a creative type but with definite prose shortcomings. In this story it feels that the author is telling a story directly to the reader. It feels more direct, more personal. For whatever reason, while this style is pretty much limited to this story, it seemed to stick with me through the rest of the book. There was a feeling of directness. An intimacy of an author speaking directly to me that remained throughout. I don't want to call the style simple, because it isn't. It was just something different, something different about the feelings I had while reading. Like I said, it felt personal and it made the experience all the more special.
I briefly want to talk about the photographs. Each story had a photograph on the title page. A lot of collections do these, but generally they are drawings. The photos were thought-provoking. I almost looked at them as the reverse of writer's prompts. Reader's prompts if you will - OK, I have seen the photo, my mind went somewhere while looking at it - Now let's see where Doug goes. That kind of thing.
I will briefly touch each story in my video review. But for the purpose of this, I will only talk about my top 4.
#4: A Different Kind of Slumber - A dream killer. A man has the power to pull you into his world while you are sleeping. This one has vicious crime scenes. Shades of religious extremism, biblical references in the killings. It's dark and scary and satisfying.
#3: Bequeathed - A son who doesn't remember much about his mother - other than that she went away - is bequeathed an antique book of fairy tales and the request to spread her ashes at their old home. A piece of film negative is found in the book that shows a piece of personal history he does not remember. An answer to the questions he has about his mother. Great, GREAT story.
#2: End_Game - An online murder for hire website. A young man pays in advance for services. The request? Kill my parents, but it has to happen now. Levels upon levels in this one.
#1: The Yattering - A young man experiences a haunting in a book store where he is employed. Is it real, is he going crazy? He makes plans to find out and then boom! the store closes. This story follows him as, 20 years later, he goes back to see what remains in the shell of this old book store. This is the one that was written with the more personal, direct type of narrative. The sense of unease was STRONG with this one. Physical feelings of dread.
Rinaldi's style was a bit different that any of the authors I have been reading recently. The stories, the themes, the photographs, the style all combined into one hell of a collection
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Link to purchase: https://bookshop.org/books/fear-of-free-standing-objects-a-collection/9781650577845
Review by Well Read Beard
Twitter: @WellReadBeard
I received this book from the author for review consideration.