AMERICAN MORONS by Glen Hirshberg (Earthling Publications, 2006; Ash-Tree Press, e-books, 2012. Winner of International Horror Guild best collection award)
American Morons is Glen Hirshberg’s second collection, and according to the Earthling Publications website, they still have the trade hardcover in print. Although I consider Hirshberg’s first collection, The Two Sams, stronger, this contains a fine group of ghost stories and is well worth your time to seek out.
Most of the best remembered ghost stories create tension and suspense through evoking a sense of impending disaster, of fated doom; they perform a sort of macabre strip-tease, slowly unveiling the nature of the threat to the protagonists. Hirshberg, perhaps taking his cue from writers like Henry James, Walter de la Mare and Shirley Jackson, widens this approach even as he establishes cause for dread.
Here, as in his first collection and his novel, The Snowman’s Children, Hirshberg specializes in protagonists who are sensitive to the changing emotional states of those around them, protagonists all too aware of their own fallibility even as they grope toward knowledge and understanding, sometimes reaching it soon enough and sometimes not. While his stories have a full emotional palette that includes wry humor, love, friendship, compassion and empathy, around these emotional colors the shading and shadowing are gradations of melancholy. This melancholy usually stems from the past and from regret born in personal history, regret for past actions or for past inactions, for not understanding a situation until too late or for understanding it and either not admitting its reality or being unable to rise above personal limitations to contend with it, for not being the person you thought you were or you wanted to be or the person the people you care for need. This is not to say these stories are despairing. Some end sadly, some in fear, some with revelation, some with an earned, mature hope. Whether dealing with older characters (“Transitway”, “The Muldoon”) or younger (“Safety Clowns”, “American Morons”, and “The Muldoon”) Hirshberg homes in on their needs and insecurities, their sensitivities and concerns, and their love for each other, and frequently weaves the supernatural into their stories in such a way that the weird and supernatural isn’t so much an intrusion into their lives as an extension or illumination of who they are.
The stories in this collection:
“American Morons”: Two American students, trying to rekindle their high school romance, tour Italy. They hear reports of ritualistic killings of Americans near Rome, but because of the language barrier know little of what is happening. Then their car stalls at a toll booth and they are dependent on two young Italian men. Are the two men there to help? What is that odd crying beyond the wall beside their car? When do you recognize the moment you are aware the person you love no longer loves you and may not even respect you?
“Like a Lily in a Flood”: A two-person set piece. The hostess of a bed and breakfast reads from the diary of her great-great-grandmother to Nagle, her guest, someone who has vacationed at the house yearly for two decades. Each has ties to the past, but what are their ties to each other?
“Flowers on Their Bridles, Hooves in the Air”: The title refers to the carousel Rebecca remembers her father taking her to as a little girl, and to which she takes her husband, Eliot, and Ash, Eliot’s best friend. Rebecca and Ash share an affinity, an unspoken understanding. She hasn’t been the same since 9/11 and the birth of her daughter has not entirely shaken her out of her funk. Here at the arcade, in spite of its run down condition, in spite of the carousel no longer being in place, still there’s a sense, a feeling of what she remembers as a child that brings her father back to her. But that is not necessarily good.
“Safety Clowns”: Max’s mother has died and while he can afford to stay in her condo a while longer, he needs money to return to school. What more enjoyable summer job than driving an ice cream truck, bringing happiness to the people you meet? But there is happiness and happiness and Max must choose, and there are consequences for choices.
“Devil’s Smile”: Historical fantasy. A government employee has come, to inspect the lighthouse in a small Maine town, a town he knew well as a boy. He finds the town nearly deserted, one of many such he’s found along the eastern coast, perhaps losing their populations to the new whaling centers like New Bedford. His cousin Amalia and her father once lived here, and the barrenness of the area and of the town causes him to wonder where they have gone since he hasn’t heard from them in years. Then he meets the woman who lives in the lighthouse, widow of its former keeper, and hears her story. There are strange stories to tell of the sea, and some of them may answer his questions.
“Transitway”: Two old men, newly freed from the bonds of employment, living in a haze of memories not located where they can quite grasp them decide on a little trip. But the car is broken down and their only transportation is the new bus terminal. Has anyone they know used it? Has anyone they know come back from it?
“The Muldoon”: Grandpa was a big man in the community, and at his death Martin and Miriam learn more about him, more about his capacity for helping and caring for his family. This is a deeply felt study of kids coming to understand something about adulthood, about the responsibility of caring for family members. Its focus on family has a feel something like a compressed To Kill a Mockingbird, and it’s a fine ghost story, as well.
The only story that dissatisfied me was “Like a Lily in a Flood.” The embedded historical story is fascinating, but its contemporary setting feels a bit conventional to me in ways other Hirshberg stories do not. Of the other stories, I expect to see “Devil’s Smile,” “The Muldoon,” and especially “Flowers on Their Bridles, Hooves in the Air” in many future anthologies. That last combines weirdness with a kind of sweetness that made it my favorite in this collection.
More by Glen Hirshberg:
The Two Sams (collection)
The Snowman’s Children (novel)
“Struwwelpeter”
(You’ll have to scroll down to find the message; it’s number 62)
NOTE: Ash-Tree Press was established In the mid-1990s to bring back into print the supernatural works by writers from the turn of the 20th century, specializing particularly in the ghost story. Recently they have been converting older, out of print works to e-book format. This is one of a few titles not originally published by them that they are also offering as an e-book.
Next: The Snowman’s Children by Glen Hirshberg
American Morons is Glen Hirshberg’s second collection, and according to the Earthling Publications website, they still have the trade hardcover in print. Although I consider Hirshberg’s first collection, The Two Sams, stronger, this contains a fine group of ghost stories and is well worth your time to seek out.
Most of the best remembered ghost stories create tension and suspense through evoking a sense of impending disaster, of fated doom; they perform a sort of macabre strip-tease, slowly unveiling the nature of the threat to the protagonists. Hirshberg, perhaps taking his cue from writers like Henry James, Walter de la Mare and Shirley Jackson, widens this approach even as he establishes cause for dread.
Here, as in his first collection and his novel, The Snowman’s Children, Hirshberg specializes in protagonists who are sensitive to the changing emotional states of those around them, protagonists all too aware of their own fallibility even as they grope toward knowledge and understanding, sometimes reaching it soon enough and sometimes not. While his stories have a full emotional palette that includes wry humor, love, friendship, compassion and empathy, around these emotional colors the shading and shadowing are gradations of melancholy. This melancholy usually stems from the past and from regret born in personal history, regret for past actions or for past inactions, for not understanding a situation until too late or for understanding it and either not admitting its reality or being unable to rise above personal limitations to contend with it, for not being the person you thought you were or you wanted to be or the person the people you care for need. This is not to say these stories are despairing. Some end sadly, some in fear, some with revelation, some with an earned, mature hope. Whether dealing with older characters (“Transitway”, “The Muldoon”) or younger (“Safety Clowns”, “American Morons”, and “The Muldoon”) Hirshberg homes in on their needs and insecurities, their sensitivities and concerns, and their love for each other, and frequently weaves the supernatural into their stories in such a way that the weird and supernatural isn’t so much an intrusion into their lives as an extension or illumination of who they are.
The stories in this collection:
“American Morons”: Two American students, trying to rekindle their high school romance, tour Italy. They hear reports of ritualistic killings of Americans near Rome, but because of the language barrier know little of what is happening. Then their car stalls at a toll booth and they are dependent on two young Italian men. Are the two men there to help? What is that odd crying beyond the wall beside their car? When do you recognize the moment you are aware the person you love no longer loves you and may not even respect you?
“Like a Lily in a Flood”: A two-person set piece. The hostess of a bed and breakfast reads from the diary of her great-great-grandmother to Nagle, her guest, someone who has vacationed at the house yearly for two decades. Each has ties to the past, but what are their ties to each other?
“Flowers on Their Bridles, Hooves in the Air”: The title refers to the carousel Rebecca remembers her father taking her to as a little girl, and to which she takes her husband, Eliot, and Ash, Eliot’s best friend. Rebecca and Ash share an affinity, an unspoken understanding. She hasn’t been the same since 9/11 and the birth of her daughter has not entirely shaken her out of her funk. Here at the arcade, in spite of its run down condition, in spite of the carousel no longer being in place, still there’s a sense, a feeling of what she remembers as a child that brings her father back to her. But that is not necessarily good.
“Safety Clowns”: Max’s mother has died and while he can afford to stay in her condo a while longer, he needs money to return to school. What more enjoyable summer job than driving an ice cream truck, bringing happiness to the people you meet? But there is happiness and happiness and Max must choose, and there are consequences for choices.
“Devil’s Smile”: Historical fantasy. A government employee has come, to inspect the lighthouse in a small Maine town, a town he knew well as a boy. He finds the town nearly deserted, one of many such he’s found along the eastern coast, perhaps losing their populations to the new whaling centers like New Bedford. His cousin Amalia and her father once lived here, and the barrenness of the area and of the town causes him to wonder where they have gone since he hasn’t heard from them in years. Then he meets the woman who lives in the lighthouse, widow of its former keeper, and hears her story. There are strange stories to tell of the sea, and some of them may answer his questions.
“Transitway”: Two old men, newly freed from the bonds of employment, living in a haze of memories not located where they can quite grasp them decide on a little trip. But the car is broken down and their only transportation is the new bus terminal. Has anyone they know used it? Has anyone they know come back from it?
“The Muldoon”: Grandpa was a big man in the community, and at his death Martin and Miriam learn more about him, more about his capacity for helping and caring for his family. This is a deeply felt study of kids coming to understand something about adulthood, about the responsibility of caring for family members. Its focus on family has a feel something like a compressed To Kill a Mockingbird, and it’s a fine ghost story, as well.
The only story that dissatisfied me was “Like a Lily in a Flood.” The embedded historical story is fascinating, but its contemporary setting feels a bit conventional to me in ways other Hirshberg stories do not. Of the other stories, I expect to see “Devil’s Smile,” “The Muldoon,” and especially “Flowers on Their Bridles, Hooves in the Air” in many future anthologies. That last combines weirdness with a kind of sweetness that made it my favorite in this collection.
More by Glen Hirshberg:
The Two Sams (collection)
The Snowman’s Children (novel)
“Struwwelpeter”
(You’ll have to scroll down to find the message; it’s number 62)
NOTE: Ash-Tree Press was established In the mid-1990s to bring back into print the supernatural works by writers from the turn of the 20th century, specializing particularly in the ghost story. Recently they have been converting older, out of print works to e-book format. This is one of a few titles not originally published by them that they are also offering as an e-book.
Next: The Snowman’s Children by Glen Hirshberg
.. no, you had to express your emotions. In words. If Dracula were written now, Stoker would have to write it using emails and tweets and smilies with fangs. 
