Crawling Between Heaven and Earth | ||||||||
Sarah A. Hoyt | ||||||||
Dark Regions Press, 169 pages | ||||||||
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A review by Matthew Peckham
Hoyt is an idea barker, someone whose conventional stories often turn on a surprise ending or follow a clever equation. From vampires
to sexually empathic aliens, Shakespeare's in-laws to Elvis, Hoyt dishes up her own blend of page-turners and mellow ruminations
on subjects ranging from ancient Rome and the American Civil War to orientalism. You certainly can't fault her for sporting a
narrow range of interests, and most of the material -- especially her Shakespearean tales -- is loaded with period detail and
thoughtful characterizations that make the occasional clashes between style and substance all the more egregious.
Hoyt's characters are caught in that metaphorical limbo-land between heaven and earth, and so, ironically, are the stories,
careening from mostly polished to occasionally jolting with overwrought phrases that refuse to sit still, such as this description
of a soldier's head wound in the time traveling war story "Like Dreams of Waking."
The two strongest pieces in the collection are the Analog story "Trafalgar Square" and one originally published
in Weird Tales entitled "Songs." "Trafalgar Square" supposes the Mongols successfully rampaged west, not east,
resulting in a socio-economic flip-flop -- western society swings socialist and China (you guessed it) becomes the
imperialist-capitalist global superpower. It's a clever way to approach a punch-drunk subject and morph cultural notions of the
Other, and Hoyt pulls it off adroitly, right down to a predictable ending that works.
"Songs" is a melancholy ghost story, perhaps the most intriguing piece in the collection -- a beautiful winsome tale of abandoned
love complete with shocker ending that proceeds to one-up itself before settling to poignant finale. Aside from the occasional
sentimental eruption, this sort of piece is where Hoyt seems most comfortable with her evenly paced voice, and the least
interested in conveying straightforward actions or emotions in archaic ways.
It would be intriguing to see some of these stories spend time back in the shed, a little slice here, a bit of shaving there,
a few lower impact adjectives and overcooked sentences. Hoyt's strengths include an ability to plot and deliver, and ideas
like aliens that stalk and spawn off psychic energy (repeating the cycle, keyed to a specific female, generation after
generation) reveal a talent for conjuring the exceptionally unusual that could lend itself to more developed work down the
road. It will certainly be interesting to see what she produces in the years ahead.
Matthew Peckham is the pen name of Matthew Peckham. He holds a Master's Degree in English Creative Writing and is currently employed by a railroad. |
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