Customer Reviews

To Beat a Dead Horse

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This book creeped me out something fierce. It's not the type of horror that smacks you in the face. It's the sort that simmers and brews and when you finally get around to the climax it's way too late for pleasant dreams or happy endings. This isn't a comfortable book. It's not a collection of stories that you can read before bed. I tried. Then I lay there for hours thinking about what I'd read. Too much of the horror in Campbell's stories is culled directly from reality, familiar reality. No one is safe in a William Campbell story, not even the reader.

First, in the interest of disclosure, I provided a blurb for Mr. Campbell's book. This review, then, is something of an expansion of that blurb.

Bill Campbell writes about troubling things: execution, abortion, family dysfunction. He is not afraid to take a stance on these issues, or to let that stance come through in his stories, but he seldom demands that you see things the way he does. He just wants you to give 'em some thought.

Standout stories in this collection are "Don't Cheat The Tooth Fairy" "Abortion Is Life" and "Fantasy Night", but it's unlikely that any of them will leave you disappointed. In addition, Campbell has included the stage versions of several stories, and it's interesting to note the changes that were wrought in tranforming the original material.

Fans of Stephen King, Richard Matheson, or F. Paul Wilson will enjoy this very much, I think. And I think we will hear much more from the talented Mr. Campbell

William Campbell writes like a man unhappy with life. After reading his introduction--a bad marriage, a messy divorce, custody battle--it's no surprise. But he's one of those writers who is able to take their pain and turn it into great work. His collection, "Beat a Dead Horse" is just a glimpse at that talent.

"My mind is a tongue constantly poking at a sore tooth," he says. "If you're paying attention, you'll notice I'm . . . mixing metaphors to drive home a point, beating a dead horse . . . I haven't stopped beating dead horses entirely. This collection has a fair share of them. Some of the stories in here have been told again and again, yet I have stubbornly tried to breath new life into them."

He manages this breath of new life by putting his own life story into this collection. From the divorced father in "Don't Cheat the Tooth Fairy" and "An Hour Before Dying" to the Nebraska highways he knows so well in "Letting Go" and "What's Wrong with This Picture?" almost every story in here gives us another glimpse of William Campbell the man. For me, that's what great fiction should do, tell not only the story from the author, but the story OF the author as well. While I'm sure the surface has barely been scratched, I still came away from "Beat a Dead Horse" feeling like Campbell and I were old friends, because he writes his short fiction with such intense and harsh honesty, you read it thinking, "Yep, I been there, man. I know what you're saying."

But before you go thinking you're headed for a book of "Oh woe is me, my life is so horrible" stories, don't worry. Those are just a few of the offerings. With any luck the rest of the stories--"His Living Monument", "Special Delivery" and "Abortion is Life" especially--are just stories. If not . . . well, then, I know William Campbell a little better than I need to.

While "Beat a Dead Horse" contains 12 stories--along with stage adaptations of 5 of those stories--it's a very quick read. I had it done in a day. Instead of wasting time on the unimportant details, Campbell gets to the point, tells his story, and keeps our attention focused where it needs to be, on the page.

"He stepped forward, viewing the wreckage. His skin tingled as he walked through the maze of still rain. He stared at the twisted and mangled body in the car, the lacerated face. His hairs stood on end, his flesh covered with goose bumps, and his knees became pudding. He could no longer hold himself up. He felt queasy, unable to breathe. The face he saw was his own. Ben fell to his knees and gagged. Squeezing his fist, he clutched the watch in his hand." (from "An Hour Before Dying")

I love that paragraph. It's very descriptive, but doesn't get bogged down. Every word is important. And it's indicative of the collection as a whole.

Now you're probably wondering about those stage adaptations I mentioned. Campbell says in his introduction that he's recently been getting interested in writing for the stage. With that in mind, he's adapted some of his prose and a few of those are included in the book. It's interesting to note how he managed to deal with the limitations of exposition on stage without resorting to long boring recitations from characters on their personal histories. I'm not a theatre expert, but as a reader I thought he handled it really well, even if some of the best parts were missing--the trippy section of the last story "Abortion is Life", for instance. There's a whole middle section that was cut for the stage. It makes sense given the limits of stage production, but it's still missing. And the adaptations help in setting this collection apart from all the others out there.

Campbell took a long time off from writing to deal with his life--the life he then lets us into through his fiction--but when he came back to it, he did so with great energy and years of bottled up talent and drive. "Beat a Dead Horse" is a great collection. Now I remember why it was I took 3 of his stories for the magazine I co-edit.