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The Olive Stain and other stories
THE OLIVE STAIN and other stories. This literary fiction chapbook comprises flash fiction, short stories, and companion photographs with the addition of a lagniappe photo series, Parisian Graveyard Postcards.
Paperback: 78 pages
ISBN 13: 978-1-59948-467-9
Publisher: Le Salon Press (December 13, 2013)
Language: English
2nd Edition, 2022
Paperback: 78 pages
ISBN 13: 978-1-59948-467-9
Publisher: Le Salon Press (December 13, 2013)
Language: English
2nd Edition, 2022
78 pages, Paperback
First published December 13, 2013
183 people want to read
About the author
Kristin Fouquet
15 books58 followersKristin Fouquet is a writer and photographer in the lovely city of New Orleans. Her short fiction and fine art and street photography have been published widely online and in print. She is the author of Twenty Stories (Rank Stranger Press 2009), a collection of short literary fiction; Rampart and Toulouse (Rank Stranger Press, 2011), a novella and other stories; The Olive Stain and other stories (Hammer & Anvil Books, 2013), an e-chapbook, and the print version, The Olive Stain and other stories (Le Salon Press, 2013); Surreptitiously Yours (Le Salon Press, 2016) a novella; Surrendered Stories (Le Salon Press, 2019), a collection of short stories with companion photographs; The Repertoire (Le Salon Press, 2022), a novella; and Fleur Royale (Le Salon Press, 2023), a novelette.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 29, 2014
This is a lovely thing. It’s the kind of book that brings pleasure to the browsing of book stores, an unusual work that might easily go overlooked in a world where the senses are bombarded by the noises and images of the big hitters. It’s the type of thing I’d pick up and begin and then just want to carry on exploring, until eventually falling for it and buying so that I could take it home as my own.
What’s unusual about this thought is that I read it as an ebook, as I so often do these days, and it’s probably the first time I’ve had this thought.
It may be the way the book is constructed that added this new dimension to my kindle. Each of the stories here is accompanied by a stunning photograph. The prose and the pictures complement each other perfectly.
The first six pieces are short sketches. They dip into a moment or a life and are framed in a way that creates a little shudder. They touch darkness and suggest shadow, a little like the photos that go with them. Some of them are really super.
Though the openers earn their space in their own right, they also serve as hors d’oeuvres for the main event.
The Olive Stain is a much more substantial piece. It opens in a fairly contemporary setting and manner, but there are hints of the haunting that is to come. Soon after, it becomes a full-blown Gothic Horror. A young woman who hasn’t yet established her place in the world goes to visit her estranged brother and his partner, Byron. Their mansion is beautiful, but hides a tiny imperfection, and their own lives are crumbling in all respects. Byron (who is rather well-named) warns the woman to leave while she still can, but she’s been captivated by the magic and the stories of the place and decides that she’ll stay on. As you might imagine, it may not have been her best decision, if indeed there was a decision to be made.
This story has a lovely tone and I’d recommend it to fans of older horror fiction.
If there’s a negative about the collection, it’s the length. Having really enjoyed the starters and the main course, I really could have done with a pudding. It’s a little gripe, but I do have a big appetite and a rather sweet tooth. Maybe I’ll just have to find that satisfaction in future releases.
Go and take a look. I’m sure you’ll be captured by the opening and want to wander in more deeply.
What’s unusual about this thought is that I read it as an ebook, as I so often do these days, and it’s probably the first time I’ve had this thought.
It may be the way the book is constructed that added this new dimension to my kindle. Each of the stories here is accompanied by a stunning photograph. The prose and the pictures complement each other perfectly.
The first six pieces are short sketches. They dip into a moment or a life and are framed in a way that creates a little shudder. They touch darkness and suggest shadow, a little like the photos that go with them. Some of them are really super.
Though the openers earn their space in their own right, they also serve as hors d’oeuvres for the main event.
The Olive Stain is a much more substantial piece. It opens in a fairly contemporary setting and manner, but there are hints of the haunting that is to come. Soon after, it becomes a full-blown Gothic Horror. A young woman who hasn’t yet established her place in the world goes to visit her estranged brother and his partner, Byron. Their mansion is beautiful, but hides a tiny imperfection, and their own lives are crumbling in all respects. Byron (who is rather well-named) warns the woman to leave while she still can, but she’s been captivated by the magic and the stories of the place and decides that she’ll stay on. As you might imagine, it may not have been her best decision, if indeed there was a decision to be made.
This story has a lovely tone and I’d recommend it to fans of older horror fiction.
If there’s a negative about the collection, it’s the length. Having really enjoyed the starters and the main course, I really could have done with a pudding. It’s a little gripe, but I do have a big appetite and a rather sweet tooth. Maybe I’ll just have to find that satisfaction in future releases.
Go and take a look. I’m sure you’ll be captured by the opening and want to wander in more deeply.
March 7, 2014
I absolutely loved this. Great book and a quick read. Very well done and recommended!
I won this through the Goodreads program, thank you!
I won this through the Goodreads program, thank you!
January 20, 2014
Lyrical and unselfconsciously moody, the artfully compact pieces of The Olive Stain both add to and advance the flash fiction genre. Ms. Fouquet's evocative artwork is a welcome bonus. Lovers of New Orleans and well-crafted fiction should seek out her previous work.
November 27, 2013
I simply loved this book and the lovely pictures within and know I will reread it often.
July 28, 2014
New Orleans in all its sweaty, fetid, alcohol drenched glory.
More - http://bentanzer.blogspot.com/2014/07...
More - http://bentanzer.blogspot.com/2014/07...
August 16, 2020
Just as Good, More Disturbing
I’m a fan of Kristin Fouquet’s, her unique brand of New Orleans short fiction. Having gotten to know her writing through her previous two books, I settled in with THE OLIVE STAIN thinking I had a pretty good idea of what was coming. I was right, and I was wrong. Yes, Fouquet continues her unbroken delivery of a real-yet-mystical New Orleans with her compact stories freighted with characters she gets us attached to in the space of very few words. Places in this book even shot me back to scenes she’d set in previous books (“Cold Feet” could be a cousin of “Traveling Lightheaded,” and when the author addressed us before this book’s photo section about exorcising her demons I was transported to “Paris Is the Pretty One”). And yet, this book is different, because with THE OLIVE STAIN Fouquet has taken her habitual territory and spattered it with extra dollops of Creepy and Disturbing. It would be unfitting for me to ramble on about a book or author whose own writing is characterized by concise pound-for-pound power, so I will say simply that the title tale is a no-stops, no-mercy haunted house story for the ages, the single-page “Mirror” is one of the most searing and unsettling pieces of writing I’ve ever read, and there is nothing less than great in between.
Buy the book now, read it in October.
I’m a fan of Kristin Fouquet’s, her unique brand of New Orleans short fiction. Having gotten to know her writing through her previous two books, I settled in with THE OLIVE STAIN thinking I had a pretty good idea of what was coming. I was right, and I was wrong. Yes, Fouquet continues her unbroken delivery of a real-yet-mystical New Orleans with her compact stories freighted with characters she gets us attached to in the space of very few words. Places in this book even shot me back to scenes she’d set in previous books (“Cold Feet” could be a cousin of “Traveling Lightheaded,” and when the author addressed us before this book’s photo section about exorcising her demons I was transported to “Paris Is the Pretty One”). And yet, this book is different, because with THE OLIVE STAIN Fouquet has taken her habitual territory and spattered it with extra dollops of Creepy and Disturbing. It would be unfitting for me to ramble on about a book or author whose own writing is characterized by concise pound-for-pound power, so I will say simply that the title tale is a no-stops, no-mercy haunted house story for the ages, the single-page “Mirror” is one of the most searing and unsettling pieces of writing I’ve ever read, and there is nothing less than great in between.
Buy the book now, read it in October.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews