Black Days and Bloody Nights

by Greg Chapman. IFWG Publishing 2024

Reviewed by Kyla Ward, 2024

An ARC was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review

Vistas of blood velvet sky at sunset. A flaming halo around the moon that bathes the earth in a blood-red light. A spreading pool on the bathroom floor. Spots of red on a pillow. Apocalypses come large and small, but someone always bleeds.

Greg Chapman is the author who made me speak of "alarmingly sensual" anthropophagy in a review of his novel Netherkind. This, his latest short fiction collection, constitutes 6 original stories and 3 reprints, including the novellas "The Followers" (originally published as The Eschatologist) and "Torment". I had to read these two within the context of this book to realise how closely related they are, despite sharing nothing in the way of plot or setting. Both treat the idea, "what if Christian mythology was a literal reality?" with both thoroughness and originality. But while one provides a positive take, the other evokes a bleakness that is truly impressive.

These novellas share something else as well, a common thread throughout Chapman's work. At the centre stands a family -- father, mother and child.

For Chapman, family is how humans measure the universe. Beginnings and endings, good and evil, reality and unreality are all defined in relation to that central trinity. Anything beyond that is terrifying, incalculable, properly unthinkable -- but present in these stories nonetheless. In the titular "Black Days and Bloody Nights", Sam Carlton can only comprehend the anomalous eclipse and successive manifestations of the Entity in relation to his daughter's diagnosis. When a family unit is broken, the remaining members become unstable, tragically vulnerable to the beyond -- such as the teenage protagonist of "Marion Thinks Her World is Ending", and Detective Dunne in "Don't Watch". And a corrupted family is the worst terror of all.

"The Five Stages of Grief" is my pick of the new stories. The structure implied in the title is carried in crisp, clear prose, its ultimate conclusion as horrible as it is logical. And yet, the characters live and breathe, and Amy's struggle holds a world of meaning.

"Testament" and "Like Father, Like Son" create memorable images. Set in 1891, "Testament" has Gothic beats, as a woman returns to her family estate after a long absence. The visit stirs memories long repressed, but what the child could not comprehend proves unbearable to the adult. "Like Father, Like Son" treats the trope of the unnatural child, but with a wicked humour I thoroughly enjoyed.

On a different note, "The Yellow House" is an old favourite of mine. An auto mechanic is exposed to The King in Yellow with surprising results, in a solid application of the Chambersian mythos to a situation well beyond its original scope.

The defiantly human cover art perfectly evokes the sanguinities in store. In summary, this tightly-focused collection delivers horror in gashes and gouts, but Chapman's words will make you think as the rawness and sincerity of his emotions stir your own.

"Apocalypses come large and small, but someone always bleeds... this tightly-focused collection delivers horror in gashes and gouts, but Chapman's words will make you think as the rawness and sincerity of his emotions stir your own."