Spectral Press #2: The Abolisher of Roses, by Gary Fry – reviewed by Stephen Theaker

Like so many of us, Peter encourages his wife’s hobbies only up to the point that they begin to encroach upon his own free time. As a hard-working self-made carpet mogul with a frisky mistress down in Sheffield, he has much better things to do than accompany Patricia to the opening of a new project, a woodland art trail. But his copy of the route map takes him to an exhibit created uniquely for his edification. He’s been scornful of art, denied its power to change a man. He’s about to learn how wrong he was.

This second chapbook from Spectral Press lives up to the standard set by the first, What They Hear in the Dark by Gary McMahon. Its flaw is that the characters don’t talk like real people; as in Gary Fry’s first novel, The House of Canted Steps, the protagonist talks and thinks rather more like a psychologist than the regular fellow he’s intended to be, and for such a douchebag lets his wife talk at him for an awfully long time without interrupting her.

The House of Canted Steps, by Gary Fry

Mark Cookson is an estate agent with an odd, instant connection to a house he's been asked to sell, one whose stairs are not straight, one that "looks as if it's got something to hide". When his pregnant ex-wife Gayle and son Lewis move in with her new husband, a handsome fellow who doesn't even need to check with the bank before signing the contract, Mark becomes obsessed and angry. But is it him, or is it the house? Can he work out what's going on inside the house, and what's going on inside his own head, before it's too late?

This short novel is very carefully written, but would perhaps have benefitted from a little more roughness. The sentences are too often circumlocutory, buried under unnecessary words, too anxious to avoid any possible misunderstandings. It felt at times more like a piece of literary criticism about a novel than the novel itself. We are not just told what happens and what is said, but also exactly what to make of it, and what part it plays in the big picture.

Sometimes, of course, a bit of circumlocution and rumination can be a wonderful way for a writer to create an atmosphere, but here it works too often against the attempts to create tension. For example, a potentially terrifying scene, which sees Mark trapped by the social embarrassment of being somewhere he shouldn't while the Blood Boy creeps up on him, is squandered by having him listen in on a lengthy, quite banal conversation.

The novel echoes Thieving Fear by Ramsey Campbell (to whom the novel is dedicated) in that the evil at the heart of the novel plays with perception, but it's in a much less subtle way. Campbell's characters talk awkwardly at cross purposes, while Mark simply misses the blatantly obvious point of conversations; it's frustrating rather than frightening. And the result is that while there are mysteries for Mark, there are none for the reader – other than why he's being so obtuse.

A typical passage, from the beginning of chapter 19, illustrates the main problems with the novel: "The fact that something about this whole explanation simply didn't ring true, proved to be insufficient to prevent Mark's brain from turning back at once to the central preoccupation in his life at the moment." His ignorance is unconvincing, the prose awkward.

Still, this is a novel written with serious intent, and it has interesting, insightful things to say about stepfamily relationships. The characters are rounded and believable, and certain images – particularly those of children in danger – were unpleasantly memorable. The idea of the canted stairs creating a threshold between the apparent safety of downstairs and the nightmare of upstairs is well used, and by gum I would not like to live in that house.

The House of Canted Steps, Gary Fry, PS Publishing, hb, 228pp.