After reading Jody Rose's exhaustive critique of Laird Barron's OCCULTATION, I'm not sure what more I can add that's of value, but I'll certainly give it a shot, because the more people there are singing this fellow's praises, the better. Before I get to the book itself, let me just say that Laird Barron is, without a doubt, one of the best horror writers to come along in a very, very long time. Actually, calling him a "horror writer" doesn't even come close to doing the man justice, although I think it's safe to say that the majority of his output falls into that category, and I doubt he himself would take issue with the tag. Don't get me wrong: I'm not one of those people who feel that the horror genre is somehow unworthy of respect and must be apologized for. In reality, horror fiction constitutes the vast majority of what I read, and it always has; it's simply what appeals to me more than anything else. Think of that, and of me, what you will, but what it ultimately means is that I'm pretty familiar with the genre, and the sheer quality of Barron's work easily outstrips nearly everything else I've encountered in at least the past two decades, if not longer. Despite my horror fiction addiction, I've read enough of what qualifies as literature to know unequivocally that Laird Barron writes literary horror; if anyone still thinks that literature and horror are mutually exclusive, please direct them to this book as a definitive refutation of their sheer wrong-headedness.
As you're undoubtedly aware, OCCULTATION is Barron's second collection of short fiction, the first being the excellent THE IMAGO SEQUENCE. If I had to choose between the two (and having to do so would be a horror story unto itself), I'd have to say that OCCULTATION has a very slight edge over IMAGO, and I'll tell you why. I found the stories in this book to be incrementally more accessible than those in IMAGO. By "accessible," I do not mean that the characters in these stories suffer fates any less soul-shatteringly grim than their counterparts in Imago. My goodness, no. What I mean is that more of the stories in OCCULTATION seemed, at least to me, to be easier to digest on the first go-round than those in IMAGO. IMAGO, on the whole, struck me as being somewhat analogous to a David Lynch film. At the end, you might ask yourself "What the hell just happened?" but you're profoundly unsettled nonetheless. Perhaps I'm just becoming accustomed to Barron's style, but I found the stories in OCCULTATION to be a bit less cryptic while still fully retaining their ability to unnerve and disturb the reader on multiple levels, and I really mean that. This is not fiction that resorts to cheap shock tactics. While some of the stories contained herein are gruesome, Barron never, ever resorts to dumping buckets of offal at your feet merely to provoke disgust. In Barron's stories, violence can happen to the body, but more often than not, it happens to the soul, or to a character's very humanity. There's sex here, too (or, as Barron sometimes calls it, "gratuitous rumpy-pumpy"), but it's always skillfully and realistically woven into the plot. No, there's much, much more going on here than in most horror fiction. Thanks to Barron's beguilingly fluid prose, these stories insinuate themselves into your brain and remain there long after you've closed the cover of the book. In particular, I've had a hard time shaking some of the imagery found in the stories "Mysterium Tremendum" and "--30--."
Barron certainly knows how to do more than scare, though. I found two of the stories in this book that dealt with loss, "The Forest" and "The Lagerstätte," to be profoundly moving, which is something that's quite rare in the genre, and as Jody Rose mentioned, there's a thrillingly brutal brawl in "Mysterium." There's some richly subtle humor to be found as well, especially in regard to Pershing Dennard, the romantically beleaguered and frequently stewed main character of "The Broadsword." Enjoy the levity while you can, because Barron eventually wipes the smile right off your face. If you love horror like I do, though, you know that's a good thing; in fact, it's the whole point. I can't recommend OCCULTATION highly enough.
