My Goodreads review: The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All

The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All by Laird Barron

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


[Full disclosure: I received a copy of this book as part of the First Reads program.]

Laird Barron's third collection is rich & densely textured darkness. Combining classic literary horror, noir, & cosmic/Lovecraftian themes, Barron's tales offer something for almost any reader with a taste for literate fear. More so than many contemporary horror writers, he understands the value of building suspense by small clues and atmospheric suggestion -- rendering the eventual scenes of graphic violence all the more effective.

With the exception of one -- "Jaws of Saturn," which didn't work as well for me -- the tales in this collection are all reprints, & Lovecraft fans in particular are likely to have run into at least one or two before. Reading (or rereading) them within the context of the entire collection is still worthwhile. Barron's tales appear to take place within a vaguely defined but consistent dark universe, and it's interesting to find correlations between them.

My personal favorites were "Blackwood's Baby," "The Redfield Girls," "Hand of Glory," "The Siphon," & "The Men From Porlock." I took considerably longer getting through all the tales than I generally do, because the quality of the prose was breathtaking.












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