Book Review: 'The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror' edited by Stephen Jones
'The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror' is a thick brick of a book at 524 pages, published by Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., in 2021.
Britisher Stephen Jones is of course the world's foremost editor of horror fiction, with over 140 books to his credit.
In his Introduction to the anthology, Jones states that folk horror is '....basically the horrific side of folklore'. As well, folk horror is horror that usually is set in rural environs. I note that in 1993, DAW Books issued an anthology, edited (inevitably) by Martin Greenberg, titled 'Urban Horrors', so it would seem appropriate that attention be given to horror placed in pastoral places.
The contents of 'Folk Horror' range from old favorites (so to speak) from 19th-century authors, to stories from 20th and 21st-century authors, including many younger authors whose works were issued well after the Horror Boom of the 1980s and 1990s. Most of the entries appear to have been newly written for this anthology.
Rather than give capsule summaries of each of the 19 novelettes and stories in 'Folk Horror', I'll simply provide an overview that, hopefully, will give readers an idea of what to expect from the book.
I will say that in general, the treatments of horror depicted in this collection have a subdued, opaque quality; splatterpunks probably will be disappointed with 'Folk Horror'.
The anthology leads off with Arthur Machen's 1899 novelette 'The White People', about a young English girl whose governess introduces her to pagan practices. The novelette is essentially one lengthy travelogue, rendered in Little Girl-ish, through a fairyland that doesn't contain the expected rainbows and unicorns (and perhaps is better for it).
Traditional favorites from M. R. James ('Wailing Well') and Algernon Blackwood ('Ancient Lights') give readers new to the genre a grounding in the folk horror ethos. H. P. Lovecraft's vintage story 'The Hound' also somehow finds its way into this company.
The book's other novelette comes from Kim Newman, who first wrote it for a 2005 Science Fiction Book Club anthology, 'The Fair Folk'.
'The Gypsies in the Wood' features Charles Beauregard, from Newman's 1992 novel 'Anno Dracula', as the lead character. 'Gypsies' deals with malevolent fairies, coming forth to infest a kind of Steampunk Disneyland operating in Regent's Park. 'Gypsies' is one of the better entries in the anthology.
Aficionados of horror fiction will find a well-known piece among the entries in 'Folk Horror': 'Sticks', by Karl Edward Wagner, the classic tale of Lovecraftian goings-on in the woodlands of upstate New York.
I was surprised to see Dennis Etchison's 'The Dark Country' in this anthology. In my opinion Etchison's story fails to qualify as folk horror, or even as a horror story at all. If there is such a category as 'Mexican Noir', then 'Dark Country' belongs there.
Strange, unsettling places in rural England are the focus of well-composed stories from Alison Littlewood ('Jenny Greenteeth'), Mike Chinn ('All I Ever See'), David Sutton ('St. Ambrews Well'), Jan Edwards ('The Devil's Piss Pot'), Storm Constantine ('Wyfa Medj'), and Reggie Oliver ('Porson's Piece').
Ramsey Campbell presents a tale set in rural England. 'The Fourth Call' is about a village tradition that is perilous to ignore. It's a newer story, and thus, for Campbell, a better one: the horror content is more reified than Campbell was wont to do in his older tales.
Supernatural forces loose in the wild are treated in Maura McHugh's 'Gravedirt Mouth', Steve Rasnic Tem's 'Gavin's Field', and Simon Strantzas's 'The King of Stones' (which has the most graphic horror of all the anthology's contributions and, as a result, is memorable).
Folk horror outside Anglophone countries is featured in 'The Offering' by Michael Marshall Smith (you'll think twice about renting an Air BnB in Denmark, especially with a snotnosed teen in your entourage). Christopher Fowler's 'The Mistake at the Monsoon Palace' deals with an Ugly American who finds redemption in rural India; it's more a fantasy tale than a horror tale.
I finished 'The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror' with a willingness to assign it a Four Star Rating. Every reader will of course have his or her opinion on what stories should, or should not, be included, but I think the only real dud entry is Etchison's. Replacing it with something from Robert Holdstock (such as 'Scarrowfell') would, I think, propel 'Folk Horror' into Five-Star territory. But read it for yourself and see what you think............
