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Damn, my work computer does not let me see your review

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merry xmas--here ya go!

Masques V, Edited by J.N. Williamson

A few weeks ago, a student -- one of the good ones -- came into my office and sat down to chat. I don't recall much of the conversation, but I do remember we came to discuss religion, and he made the statement: "A person on the moon can only do what he does as long as he wears a spacesuit. I believe," he continued, "that we are spiritual beings, and the only way we can do what we do on earth is by wearing our earthly suits." I was struck by that statement for two reasons: First, someone (I doubt he made it up) had passed on a really good metaphor; and second, how well that metaphor resonates with the ancient Greek idea that man was not much more than matter infused with spirit.

I thought about that metaphor and how joyous Socrates was on the day of his execution (of his spirit finally being set free from his temporal prison) when I sat down and began reading the stories in Masques V. When I first picked up the book I wondered why it was called Masques and not simply Masks. The cover (painted by Clive Barker) certainly seemed to me to be signifying masks. So I pulled out a dictionary and looked up the word "masques" -- the root word of masquerade. Imagine how pleased I was to see that "masques" had less to do with the disguises one wears, but more with the act of wearing them.

Each story in this collection takes a different look at this idea of "wearing our earthly suits," of what the cost is for the person behind each of the masks that we wear. Let's face it, we all have our masks -- er, masques. In any given day I play the role of father, husband, writer, reader, teacher, student, consumer, commuter, voter, countless others -- and each role has a different set of responsibilities and expectations attached. We shift in and out of these masques so effortlessly through our lives that it seems we forget that we're even wearing them.

With this in mind, I tore into the twenty-nine stories found in Masques V written by some of the greatest writers of horror in the last century including Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson to Kealan Patrick Burke and Jack Ketchum. Every aspect of the life masquerade was under scrutiny in this book:

--Poppy Z. Brite begins the collection by examining what its like for us to see someone else take their masque off in "Wandering the Borderlands" in which an older, nameless man happens to drop dead at a community swimming pool.

--Richard Matheson ("The Haircut"), Thomas Sullivan ("Phantom of the Rainbow"), and William F. Nolan ("Killing Charlie"), among others show us what it looks like when a person refuses to take off one's masque -- as in Sullivan's tale in which one woman clings desperately to a time thirty years past that made her feel the most alive.

--Ray Garton ("Recall") and Ray Russell ("The Black Wench") examine what happens to us when we are forced to finally acknowledge what is really underneath our masques -- as the woman in Russell's story comes to terms with the ghost that haunts her family's estate.

--We see the way we sometimes wear our masques solely for the benefit of others as in Kealan Patrick Burke's "Stirrings" and Ray Bradbury's "A Beautiful Shave," in which we are shown that the masque of hospitality can only be worn for so long.

--Gary A. Braunbeck shows us the heartache that sometimes comes when we take our masques off as in "In a Hand or Face," in which a broken mother is given the worst news of her life inside the tent of a fortune teller.

--Christopher Conlon ("Ghosts in Autumn") shows us what it's like when one is doomed to always wear one's mask.

--And writers such as Mark Powers ("Mr. Handlebars") and Mort Castle ("FYI") reveal to use the way that some very bad people use their masks to hide the beasts that are lurking underneath.

This is a fantastic book, and more than a fitting encore for editor, J.N. Williamson, who cast off his own mortal masque shortly before Masques V's printing. He leaves us with this hopeful message and no greater validation for those that practice the art of writing: "[R]egardless of what the future holds for the genre (and for humankind) -- be it days of bright promise or nights of bleakest despair -- we will always, always be able to find our storytellers, those men and women whose imaginations will never stop exciting, entertaining, and enrapturing our own, articulating those concerns of the mind and spirit that we must never ignore or forget."

The book is stuffed full with great stories that are not only gripping, but the kind of tales that leave you feeling like you just read something important. This book is hands down a must have for anyone who enjoys fine writing.

Masques V
Edited by J.N. Williamson
Gauntlet Press
476 pages
Anthology ($50.00)