Book Review: Worse Than Myself by Adam Golaski
Title: Worse Than Myself
Author: Adam Golaski
Release date: July 17th, 2008
If you’ve read any of my reviews over the last almost-decade of me posting reviews, you’ll see that I’m a huge lover of the randomness of how books get onto a readers radar. 99% of the time, it’s a new book release being announced and we collectively lose our minds, preorder and repeat. But it’s that other 1% that I think would make for a wonderfully odd anthology. A book about those random occurrences that put a specific book in our hands. Such as ‘I was waiting in line to buy a water at the airport and I spotted a curly haired man with glasses sneakily signing a book.’ That’s a true story. Over on Instagram, Neil Gaiman posted about it maybe two or three years ago. He often stealth signs and in this case, a woman saw him doing it, asked him about it, as she had never read his work, and bought that book, excited to read it and having a very cool story about acquiring it.
Now, in the case of ‘Worse Than Myself’ by Adam Golaski, my story isn’t as crazily coincident and cool as that woman’s (and it doesn’t involve Neil Gaiman, though I do believe he’d love this collection!), but it was still a neat confluence. Or not? You decide. I’d jumped onto Twitter to reply to a DM, when I saw Canada’s King of Monster’s Trevor Henderson had posted that the first story in this collection was perhaps the best short story he’d ever read. I was immediately intrigued, so I went and bought the Kindle edition and read it.
Ok, so my story is DEFINITELY not as cool as the woman in the airport, but anyways, here we are and now that I’ve read this collection, I think Adam should sign a few copies and leave them in an airport book store!
What I liked: I’ll admit that I’m often weary of the word ‘weird’ when it comes to storytelling. I’m not sure why, maybe it’s me equating it to Bizarro in a way? Though I do enjoy some Bizarro. But more likely it’s that I often prefer my short fiction ‘straight forward,’ as in A-B-C storytelling without strange side narratives or things like that.
So, it seems that when I read a collection described a ‘weird fiction’ I’m often a bit more on guard, a bit more hesitant when reading, expecting the floor of the story to drop out at any moment.
The collection opens up with the story Trevor had mentioned, ‘The Animators House,’ and I will say, this was superb – though not my favorite of the batch. It starts off with a family going to visit their cousin, Mike. Mike is now a minister, devoting his time to religion and Molly and her parents haven’t seen him in some time. Once there, he tells them a horrendously terrifying story about why he chose his calling and after they leave, they’ve put it behind them. That is, until they stop at a roadside restaurant and everything takes a turn. This one goes ‘weird,’ but not in a bad way. I can’t say much more for spoilers, but this story will absolutely get under your skin.
Other highlights for me were, ‘The Demon,’ where we see a couple and their friend head to a very strange costume party at a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. A hallucinatory nightmare, this one starts creepy and becomes downright LSD-infused by the end.
‘They Look Like Little Girls’ was a phenomenal piece where tension was king. It follows a group of random strangers on a Greyhound bus. They stop at a remote stop as the bus is having mechanical issues and they must wait for a replacement to arrive. Small talk begins, but soon, things moving in the darkness outside is spotted and what they first believe are ‘dogs’ show themselves to the travelers. This was just outstanding.
Which brings me to the absolute highlight of the collection for me – ‘The Man From the Peak.’ A folklore story masquerading as a love triangle story, a man attends his best friends going away party, as his expensive home high in the mountains. He is secretly seeing his friends girlfriend and he’s hoping she’ll stay and not move to Boston. There’s a bunch of people there for the party, but when a strange man appears from higher up in the mountains and forces his way into the party, things take a turn. We get bits and pieces of what he really is, and the ending of this one was so spot on pristine that I was truly upset it was over.
What I didn’t like: Throughout, some stories either just didn’t connect with me, or started out well before going off the railings. Case in point, was the story ‘In the Cellar.’ This was initially feeling like a story that would be one of my favorites. It followed a man recounting a strange visit he had to a cottage, and it involved a girl and some stairs. But the last ending line was so jarring and felt so out of place, that it really ruined how that story presented itself.
As I said, I often struggle with ‘weird,’ so take that with a grain of salt. As with all collections what I loved you may not and what you love, may not have been something I enjoyed.
Why you should buy this: This collection, no matter whether the story resonated or not, was written masterfully. Adam throws you into each mini-world he’s created with glee and you almost feel like you’re trapped while reading it, one hand wrapped around your throat as the other frantically gets the words on the page. From start to finish, this was a dark, brutal collection that really pushes the reader to the edge. And sometimes, they get pushed over.
4/5
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