Fear Across
the Mersey by Ramsey
Campbell
PS
Publishing, hardback, £25.00, August 2024, ISBN 9781803943701
The
story starts with Crosby, a moderately successful artist, leaving the dentist while
under the influence of anaesthetic, creating the expectation of reality
blending and bending along the lines of ‘Concussion’ (the second in the
collection). There seems to be something like this in play as he has recurring thoughts
about and encounters with an image of a blank face and something that scrambles
on all fours (which may or may not belong to the same creature). Crosby visits
his girlfriend, takes part in a game show on television, and hosts an
exhibition of his work as the haunting continues. The narrative is elegant in
style, with very fine description in places, and carefully constructed, but if
there is an internal logic it escaped me entirely. As such, the conclusion was
less a surprise than a
non sequitur and I still think I must have missed
something somewhere.
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