2.5 rounded up, provisionally.

I have some mixed feelings about this one, although that could partially be due to bad timing. To explain: I've recently discovered that I am a fan of Paul Tremblay, and when I was looking up his bibliography to acquire more of his books, I saw that he was also featured in this short story collection and another one.

Now, editor Ellen Datlow's idea was to have various authors come up with stories that blended their own style with the spirit of Shirley Jackson, and that's the thing... Truth be told, I don't know enough about her writing style yet to see how successfully each author has pulled that off here; I honestly just saw online that it was a book that featured Tremblay, and I ordered it without even looking into the premise too much then and there.

So, this is my “Here's my review, BUT” type of statement: I can only give my impression of the stories on their own merit while lacking a base for comparison to Jackson's work.

My main gripe is that a few of these stories feel very rushed and end abruptly, almost as if they are more of a “proof of concept” than a full-fledged story. Some of them have genuinely good premises, but the story almost appears to randomly stop after a few pages, as if we're being set up to a punchline that never arrives, or if the author merely sent in a few pages going: “Here's a sample of how I'd write a Jackson-esque story” but then never followed through.

As such, perhaps the book didn't need as many as 18 stories. The book is roughly 400 pages, and if there was some limitations to consider in the context of that, I'd rather there be a smaller number of stories with enough space to be more fleshed-out.

Still, I won't deny that some stories in this collection provide much better reading experiences, with Hag or A Trip to Paris being among the highlights. Tremblay's contribution was quite competent, and then other authors such as Joyce Carol Oates proved that they absolutely know how to write (perhaps that is what sometimes gave me that unfinished feeling; some of these authors wrote well enough for me to wish they would keep going for just a tad longer and let the story evolve further).

I did like the variety of themes and the parallels between the typical societal quirks of ordinary life and the various supernatural elements that were featured along the way. Sometimes those elements felt quite literal, other times more symbolic – on occasion both. Some stories had a nice mix of violence and humor, and you do get some chills along the way, and some concepts are creepy in just the right way.

All in all, I wasn't flat-out disappointed; I just thought the end result didn't fully live up to the editor's ambitious goal, at least according to my own personal taste and current understanding of the chosen vibe. Again, it could be that I missed the point of certain things due to not being familiar enough with Jackson. It was an okay read for the most part, so while I'm probably coming across as mostly negative, I still appreciate the book for what it is.

Perhaps, in the future, if I have read more of Shirley Jackson's stories, I could revisit this collection with a new perspective.