Transgressions: Volume 4

All of these stories are at the soft end of the horror genre--not my favorite kind of book, but I bought it because of the authors, and I'm so glad I did. Anne Perry's story "Hostages" blows me away--it really takes apart the whole concept of being "hostage," and explores it on so many levels, only one of which is that a family is being held at gunpoint by political opponents. Nearly as wonderful is Sharyn McCrumb's "The Resurrection Man," a delicate exploration of race relations and human relations at a particular time and place in American history. Both of these stories are ones I will recommend to many friends. The longer, middle story, by Joyce Carol Oates, does not rise to the level of the other two, but I was interested enough to read it all the way through. It will entertain people who like going inside the heads of troubled people (or, in one case, truly sick people), and will disgust readers who do not.

I almost passed up this volume of the paperback "Transgressions." I find a lot of Joyce Carol Oates' work somewhat plodding and definitely ugly, and I hadn't heard of the other two authors. I'm glad I didn't skip this one. Ms. McCrumb presents us with a 19th century story of a slave who becomes a body-snatcher for an ante-bellum medical school in Georgia. After the Civil War ends, he becomes a judge of sorts, but eventually realizes that he has been installed by Northern interests specifically to outrage the defeated Southeners. He returns to his prior occupation, a free man now on salary. This is very much a character-driven story, and contains much richness that is difficult to summarize quickly. It is, in any case, a most excellent fit for the "Transgressions" awning. Ms. Perry brings us an Irish family, whose father is a rigid and uncompromising religious leader, very much opposed to giving an inch to opposing religious interests (did I neutralize that well enough?). He goes on vacation to the shore with his wife, his son, and bodyguards. All too quickly, the bodyguards are dead, and the family is in the grasp of men who want the father to step aside, and allow his authority to be taken over by someone more disposed to compromise. To the utter lack of surprise of his family, Da' says no. The situation turns ugly, and there is conflict among the kidnappers. Gradually, the more violent take control, and the strongest of the family, the mother, realizes that they all may wind up dead in the end. This is a tough story, with characters that have real texture. I found the conclusion compelling. This is also a fine fit for the "Transgressions" agenda. Ms. Oates' work, I am sorry to say, is pretty much what I expected. I found it overlong, and populated with a truly ugly villain, surrounded by near-mindless sycophants. These people, in their own way, are meaner than the thugs that menace the family in Ms. Perry's story. If you enjoy Ms. Oates' work, you will probably find this story compelling. Don't pass this volume up!

I'm generally suspicious when I see "compilations" of works by several well-known writers, all thrown together in one volume. Often, I've found the work to be substandard without regard to the merit of the work itself. Sometimes the works are early pieces which never should have seen the light of day but got published after a writer became famous. Some are even published after a writer's death, leading one to wonder if the writer would ever have WANTED the work published. But this series is a deviation from the above examples. I found each book to be absolutely wonderful. This one (Volume 4) was my first purchase and I found each piece to be top-notch, showcasing Sharyn McCrumb, Joyce Carol Oates and Anne Perry at the top of their form. These aren't short stories, but novellas, pieces which are longer than short stories but not quite long enough to be considered a novel. I particularly liked McCrumb's tale of a black man working to provide cadavers for medical students at a time when it was hard to find fresh ones. While the story was fascinating in itself, McCrumb managed to go even further, revealing so much about the historical period and attitudes about race, slavery, etc. The other two stories, Hostages and The Corn Maiden are nearly as wonderful, so much so that I felt compelled to buy every book in the series (and I pray they come out with even more). By the way, Ed McBain is the person who edited the series and I think the quality reflects his standards. He provides an intro in each book which explains why he put together the Transgressions collection and what he hoped to accomplish, allowing authors to showcase characters or plot lines they wanted to develop - or simply to experiment with a new direction. The results far surpassed my expectations! What a wonderful collection!

The three novellas that comprise this volume are each gems in their own brilliantly faceted forms. Perry starts off with Hostages, a taut political thriller with a sharply insightful look at the dynamics of power, and its crippling effects. Her protagonist, the politician's wife, comes vividly to life in the first pages, and is unforgettable by the last. The fabric of the story is so beautifully precise that the reader does not need any more than the novella to be fully satisfied, nor would any editing or tightening of the story be any improvement. It would be wonderful to see Perry explore this form further, as she has a definite talent for the difficult art of the novella. Oates' novella is the second selection in the collection. It is an atmospheric tale of evil, the kidnapping of a child by an older girl who has sacrifice and revenge percolating in her disturbed reality. The interwoven viewpoints of the group of girls who form a sort of coven under the mad teenager, the flawed and griefridden mother, and the falsely accused male teacher, cut back and forth with the tension of a D.W. Griffith photoplay, with the requisite uncertain future leaving the reader unsettled at the end. McCrumb offers a historical tale of body snatching and race relations just prior to the civil war, based on real persons who lived in Georgia and worked for the medical college. Her characters seem to exist internally more than externally: despite action and setting, the flow of the story seems to be growth and acceptance, changing philosophy and shifting attitudes. It is more a story of how a man sees his own place in the world in comparison to the others around him, rather than a creepy tale of resurrectionists and cadavers. The writing is evocative of the era, the characters are well-realized, and the story of this long-forgotten resurrectionist is handled in a satisfying manner with elegant construction. I am looking forward to the other volumes of this series. I cannot remember when I last enjoyed a book on so many different levels, yet also felt completely entertained. A great set of reads, for anyone who enjoys superior writing!