In the Mean Time

by Paul Tremblay

A history teacher begins his unorthodox senior course with clips from an ominous surveillance video, causing a student's home life to deteriorate along with the lessons.

A girl with a second head that changes into different historical and fictional identities tries to find her father while figuring out how to handle Mom and the book club.

A blog documents society's slow, unexplained, but inexorable end, or is it only a collection of pixel-sized paranoia?

A once-awkward teen holes up in a kiddie-themed amusement park after the end of the world, and schemes to take Cinderella's Castle by force.

This collection by Paul G. Tremblay (author of The Little Sleep and No Sleep Till Wonderland) features fifteen stories of fear and paranoia, stories of apocalypses both societal and personal, and stories of longing and coping.

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"Paul Tremblay's stories sneak up on you quietly and then . . . wow! You don't know what hit you, but you like it. And you want more. Powerful, emotional and unforgettable; these are stories that work their way into your brain and into your heart. Highly recommended."
– Ann Vandermeer, Hugo Award-winning editor of Weird Tales

"Considering the quality of Tremblay's short fiction, a collection like In The Mean Time is long overdue. There are a handful of authors which I consider are the 'writer's writer': Jeffrey Ford, Jeff VanderMeer, Kij Johnson, Mary Robinette Kowal. Paul Tremblay easily belongs to that list, and this book proves it."
– Charles Tan, Bibliophile Stalker

"Paul Tremblay's In The Mean Time is a dark, heart-twisting collection of short fiction which defies categorization and requires your complete attention. The children, parents, and teachers who inhabit these stories exist in the ways we all exist-through those old historical longings which are rarely answered. Tremblay offers no solutions, but in the end, somehow, we walk away with a greater understanding of ourselves. Or, at the very least, the kind of selves we are but rarely see."
– Jessica Anthony, author of The Convalesent

"In The Mean Time is a miscellany of voices-witty, wise, weird, assured. These stories push at boundaries, not just within genre; they play alongside the uneasy undercurrents of lives we'd usually call ordinary. Stories to read and read again."
– Helen Oyeyemi, author of The Opposite House and White is for Witching

"In The Mean Time is a formidable collection, as disquieting as it is beautiful. They shock and they gleam, these stories, and the moods they provoke linger powerfully in the the dread of those who see the trouble coming and the strange relief of those upon whom it has already fallen."
– Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Brief History of the Dead

"Rumor has it that the world will end in fire and ice, but then again, if Paul Tremblay is to be believed, it may conclude in preternaturally active plants, amusement parks, sudden brain aneurisms, and silence. In Mean Time, end of the world scenarios brush up against the traumas of more personal apocalypses. The resulting stories are as stressful and quietly traumatic as they are fluidly and lucidly written."
– Brian Evenson, author of Last Days and Fugue State

"The power of these stories is that you think you're reading them, that there's that distance, but really you're living them, experiencing them, and that's how you remember them later. Not as something you read, but an event you lived."
– Stephen Graham Jones, author of Demon Theory and The Ones That Almost Got Away

"Paul Tremblay is a storyteller of the highest order-edgy, sensitive, and fearless."
– Stewart O'Nan, author of Last Night at the Lobster and Songs for the Missing

"Paul Tremblay creates images of terror and wonder. Lean, mean, and just a bit on the nasty side, he's a hardnosed prose stylist with a heavyweight punch. Tremblay is a bona fide contender."
– Laird Barron, author of The Imago Sequence

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fantasy, Fiction, Dystopia, Anthologies, Short Story Collection

214 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Paul Tremblay has won the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, the Sheridan Le Fanu, and Massachusetts Book awards and is the author of the New York Times bestselling Horror Movie, The Beast You, Are, The Pallbearers Club, Survivor Song, Growing Things, Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, A Head Full of Ghosts, and the crime novels The Little Sleep and No Sleep Till Wonderland. His novel The Cabin at the End of the World was adapted as the Universal Pictures film Knock at the Cabin. His short fiction and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly online, and numerous year’s-best anthologies. He has a master’s degree in mathematics and lives outside Boston with his family. He is represented by Stephen Barbara, InkWell Management.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

a float for paul tremblay!!!

holy freaking crap!!

i am giving this five stars, even though there were one or two stories there that i didn't think were the best, because the ones that were great were GREAT as in "i want you guys to all read this book-great."

first - a word. barnes and noble has this publisher shelved in sci-fi/fantasy which is so frustrating to me because the world being the way it is, fewer people browse genre-sections than browse general fiction-literature because the assumption is that sci-fi/fantasy is going to be all planets and wizards and shit. but none of the CZP books are like that, really. they are like canada-does-bizarro, but with more delicacy and fewer ass-raping goblins. they are more dark magical realism than fantasy, and it irritates me that the two i have read from this publisher have both been excellent this one! and really make me want to read the other 7-10 of their books that i have already bought, but would probably never have come across if i wasn't in the trenches and responsible for all-things-fiction.i just doubt a fan of mercedes lackey or kim stanley robinson would find what they are looking for in these books. bad match, barnes and noble!

these stories are everything i love and hate about short stories. the best of them are like my favorite morrissey song:
evocative without giving every detail of the story so you are left with those shivers of "more, please." these stories are haunting in the best possible way, especially growing things, the blog at the end of the world and it's against the law to feed the ducks - so gentle of a touch, so much restraint and it kills me because i need to know more!!i hated leaving these characters behind!! SHORT STORIES, WHY ARE YOU SO SHORT???

for example: headstones in your pocket?? fuck you, awesome writing! why are you over?? i was just getting attached to you!

and do you see the blurbs?? kevin brockmeier, helen oyeyemi, and brian evenson!! i have read all three of these authors and they are all crazy-good. the back of this book says there are more books by this author, and you had better believe i am going to get mr. bill thompson on this for me because i may have a new favorite author.

do you see the purple eighties sweatshirt glitter on the cover?? it is just glorious!

even the stories i didn't really latch onto were never bad, just not my thing. this man is a gift, and you need to read him.

(i love how my dad, who is the best dad ever and loves me unconditionally and so has an inflated sense of my "talent", thinks i should review for the new york times. i would seriously love to see what they would do with a review like this: "fuck, fuck, fuck, enthusiasm, glee, invoking the name of someone you may or may not know, fuck, glitter, shit.")

TAKE THAT, KAKUTANI!!! MY DADDY SAYS I REVIEW GOOD!!!

come to my blog!

[Jessie (Zombie_likes_cake) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tremblay writes unreliable characters like it's nobody's business (for more on that check out his phenomenal novel "A Head Full of Ghosts"). And apparently apocalypses, too, for that matter. Overall, Tremblay's stories and his writing are just spectacular. Admittedly, this collection is not perfect, there were a couple of duds for me, yet the ones that scored scored really high. REALLY high. And to clarify, the majority scored.
I just love what great writers can do with the short story format, a good short story is not just a shorter version of a story. A good short story does not feel like it should be extended, like you want to read more of that, a good short story knows when to shut up. Tremblay knows when to shut up.
The easiest to categorize these is post-apocalyptic, then again not all of them are. They are on the outskirts of the Horror field, they are more unsettling than scary, more melancholic than creepy, more thoughtful than action-packed. I personally really like this spot on the edge of Horror, not quite there but still cannot be dismissed as not horrifying.

My top 6 (since it was impossible to simply narrow it to a top 5):
6) It's Against the Law to Feed the Ducks
5) The Two-Headed Girl
4) We Will Never Live in the Castle
3) There's No Light Between Floors
2) Growing Things
1) The People who Live Near Me

The I'd skip: The Blog at the End of the World

[Richard Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review originally published at The Nervous Breakdown:
http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/rt...

When you enter the world of Paul Tremblay most anything can happen, and usually does. His recent collection, In The Mean Time (ChiZine Publications) defies expectations, the cover art a soft purple hue all filled with glittery type. It shows the faces of two sweet girls, which at first glance (pay attention, readers, the show starts here) could be two sisters sitting very close together, twins maybe. But no, it’s a two-headed girl, the first of many things that are not what then seem to be, the first of many times where Tremblay takes you by the hand and whispers sweet nothings in your ear, all the while the world falling apart around you, infrastructures crumbling, supplies running out, strange diseases wiping out the populace. But beyond all of that is the emotion, the humanity of what it must be like to exist in such end days, and it is here that he ratchets up the stories to more than just post-apocalyptic terror, dwelling in the individuals and families that are struggling to survive, to connect, to have a normal conversation, a memory that doesn’t send it all fracturing into shards of a former existence. It’s here between the floors where there’s no light, and yet, a sprinkling of hope.

The first story in this collection pulls no punches, and certainly Tremblay started off with this unnerving tale for this reason. One of my favorite stories of the collection, “The Teacher” takes a normal group of high school overachievers, and turns their AP History class upside down (What’s the saying? Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it?), showing them that the world out there isn’t all puppies and Facebook and Algebra. Sometimes in the most banal of settings life is horrific, and the responsibility of it all starts with the individual:


“We loved him before we walked into the room. We loved him when we saw his name on our schedules. Mr. Sorent says, ‘All right, this is going to be a special class.’ We love him because of the music and movie posters on his walls, the black stud earring in his left ear, his shoulder-length hair. We love him because of those black horn-rimmed glasses; the same glasses we see people wearing on TV and in movies. We love him because he looks like us.”

The key to this passage is in the final sentence, “We love him because he looks like us.” But no, he is not like them, he has witnessed atrocities, and they have shaped him. The students have no idea what is coming next, they have not experienced life, felt the pain or seen the horror that he has, that most adults have, out in the “real world”.

So, he shows it to them. He shows them car accidents and war and autopsies, but the very first video is the one that sticks with them, destroys them, so they can be rebuilt (most of them, anyway), pausing the tape, advancing the video a single frame per day, slowly revealing the inevitable:

“The teacher is a young woman. She wears white, unflattering khakis and a collared shirt with the school’s logo above the breast. Her hair is tied up tight behind her head, a fistful of piano wire. She breaks up the fight on the chairs, and then another child runs into her leg and falls to the ground. She picks up the squirming child, grabbing one arm and leg. She spins, giving a brief airplane ride, but then she lets go. Mr. Sorent pauses the video, and we know the teacher did not simply let go.

Mr. Sorent doesn’t say anything until we’re all looking at him. He says, ‘I don’t want to say too much about this.’ He edges the video ahead by one frame. The airborne child is a boy with straight blond hair. We can’t see his face, and he’s horizontal, trapped in the black-and-white ether three feet above the carpeted floor. ‘Your individual reactions will be your guide, your teacher.’ The video goes ahead another frame. The boy’s classmates haven’t had time to react. The teacher still has her arms extended out. If someone were to walk in now and see this, I imagine they’d want to believe she was readying to catch the child. Not the opposite, not what really happened. Mr. Sorent moves the video ahead another frame and a wall comes into view, stage right. Class ends, and none of us will go see Mr. Sorent after school.”

Every day, this class has to digest this information, left to come to their own conclusions. It is a horrible thing to watch, the way that they deal with this new information, the way that they now hate their teacher for bursting their bubble, for making them pay attention. And yet, there is a sense of epiphany, of something changing, hopefully for the better. There is something that cannot be forgotten in this lesson, this history, something that hopefully won’t be repeated.

There are several tales of the apocalypse in this collection, and each story deals with it in a different way. For some, it is “The Blog at the End of the World,” complete with a forum of responses, riddled with typos, trolls and bigotry, but accurate nonetheless. For others, in “We Will Never Live in the Castle” it is about youth, and second chances, and territory. But the most powerful tale, in my opinion, is the quietly devastating “It’s Against the Law to Feed the Ducks”.

A small family heads off to the woods to go camping. A father and mother watch over their son Danny, and their infant Beth. It’s just like any other family vacation, any other story where you pile in the old station wagon, or SUV, and head off into nature to bond with the elements, finding a sanctity and peace that is often missed in the monotonous daily grind.

A chorus that repeats throughout this story, Danny’s constant request to pretend, it deals with illusion and hope, shifting over time from sweetness to devastation:

“Dotted lines and bleached pavement give way to a dirt path that roughly invades the woods. Danny watches his infant sister Beth sleep, all tucked into herself and looking like a new punctuation mark. Danny strains against his twisted shoulder harness. He needs to go pee but he holds it, remembering how Daddy didn’t say any mad words but sighed and breathed all heavy the last time he asked to stop for a pee break.

Danny says, ‘Mommy, pretend you didn’t know I was going to be five in September.’

Ellen holds a finger to her chin and looks at the car’s ceiling for answers. ‘Are you going to be ten years old tomorrow?’

‘No. I will be five in September.’

‘Oh, wow. I didn’t know that, honey.’”

Pretend that you’re older. Pretend we still have rules. Pretend that the truth has been revealed. Pretend it’s a beautiful day. Pretend we’re in a spaceship. None of it matters, and yet, all of it matters.

Over time, we see the world around them change. There is one evening around the television set where the parents go quiet, sending Danny to the other room, his mother staring at the screen, hand over her mouth, quiet. The beaches become empty, that much more room for them to go and play, the children still unaware of what has happened. Danny’s father gets supplies, negotiating with the girl at the grocery story, unsure if credit cards still work, allowing themselves a moment of laughter as they ride across the parking lot on a shopping cart, wind in their hair, the deserted pavement a constant reminder.

As we reach the end of the story, the parents still carrying the weight of their knowledge, their secret, we are back at the beach, looking to feed the ducks:

“The ducks waddle over. They don’t know the law. Tom pulls out a bag of Cheerios, Beth’s snack, and tosses a few on the sand. The ducks converge and are greedy.

Ellen pushes the stroller deeper into the shade away from the ducks and says, ‘Are you sure we can spare those, Mr. Keeper-of-the-Supplies?’ It walks like a joke and talks like a joke but it isn’t a joke.

Danny says, ‘Daddy! Don’t you remember the sign? It’s against the law to feed the ducks.’ Danny looks around, making sure the people who aren’t there still aren’t there.

‘It’s okay now, buddy. I don’t think anyone will care anymore. Here, kiddo.’

He takes the Cheerio bag from Daddy. Daddy pats his head. Danny digs a hand deep into the bag, pulls it out, and throws Cheerios onto the sand. The ducks flinch and scatter toward the water, but they come back and feed.”

It’s so touching, and so sad. The way that the parents keep their dignity, and allow their children to enjoy what is left of this world, for as long as they can. The strength it must have taken, the quiet pain they must have swallowed.

If I haven’t sold you on Paul Tremblay yet, just take a quick gander at the people willing to blurb this collection, a list of extremely talented authors, many of whom deal with the same dark, layered stories: Kevin Brockmeier, Laird Barron, Brian Evenson, Stephen Graham Jones, Ann Vandermeer, and Kevin Wilson. They speak of the beauty, the emotion, and the wisdom in the same breath that they call these tales disquieting, traumatic and shocking. One word we all seem to agree on is unforgettable. Paul Tremblay has put together an original, haunting, and timeless collection, the echoes of which still reverberate between my heart and my head, unwilling to let me go.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nearly 5 stars. Superb stories: strange and weird (a girl with two heads, a man who fills his house with spiders), or post- or pre-apocalyptic (in one the world is overgrown with bamboo like plants, that eventually come up through the floorboards; in another there is a cerebral aneurysm epidemic). OK there are innumerable examples of strange and/or end-of-the-world stories but what sets Tremblay apart is the odd combination of humour and compassion. And the smooth, expert writing. It was possible to feel sympathy for the adolescent boy who lives inside the fibre-glass elephant in an amusement arcade (!-where else would you live post-apocalypse?) even though he may have bad intentions towards the new girl that arrives and persuades him to storm the Cinderella castle. The family in 'It is Against the Law to Feed the Ducks' will tear your heart to pieces. This latter story, from the pov of a small child is a masterpiece of suggestion and delicacy. The fmily are on holiday when some disaster strikes (war possibly) and the adults gather round the TV all the time to find out what's happening, but meanwhile try to reassure the boy there's nothing wrong. The boy plays 'let's pretend' games:
'Mommy, pretend you didn't know it's a beautiful day.'
Ellen shuffles the cards. 'So it's really rainy and cold out, right?'
'No. There's no clouds. And the sun is out and super hot. It's a beautiful day.'
In context this banality makes you physically shudder. It takes a very good writer to do that.

Oh bollocks I'm changing this to 5 stars, even though there were a couple of stories that didn't quite hit those heights.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://www.hipsterbookclub.com/review...

Paul Tremblay blends fantasy, horror, and realism in his new short story collection In the Mean Time. In 15 stories of personal and social catastrophes, Tremblay confronts the loneliness, fear, paranoia, and endurance of humankind.

The book collects a handful of Temblay’s published stories from the past decade with a few original to the collection. The author plays with elements of different genres, ranging from realism to dark fantasy and science fiction. The disquieting opening story, “The Teacher,” sets the tone for the collection. A high school teacher challenges his students’ perceptions of inevitability with an unorthodox lesson plan, while one of his students copes with her dissolving home life. With subtlety, Tremblay confronts the strain of everyday life and the personal traumas we endure. That theme carries through the book to varying degrees, pitting personal catastrophes against end-of-the-world incidents. Whether coping with an emotional or literal apocalypse, Tremblay’s characters share the same sense of devastation and desire for survival.

Some more explicitly rely on science fiction or horror, like “Figure 5,” in which a plague transforms its victims into gruesome creatures. In the final story in the collection, “We Will Never Live in the Castle,” characters seek refuge up in an abandoned amusement park after the apocalypse. The most successful stories, however, fall somewhere in between realism and fantasy. By adding just a hint of the fantastic or absurd, Tremblay amplifies the mood and tension without detracting from a story’s honesty. For example, in "The Two-Headed Girl,” a teenage girl copes with the pressures of isolation, a strained relationship with her single mother, and a longing to locate the father she never knew. She also happens to have an extra head that takes on the shape and persona of historical and fictional characters. An element of the absurd or fantastic in Tremblay’s stories only highlights the strangeness of our everyday lives. Like a surrealist painting, Tremblay challenges readers to question rationality and zero in on the natural and sometimes uncomfortable emotions at the heart of a story. The fantasy or sci-fi elements may first appear to take the reader outside of reality, but as each story progresses, readers find themselves relating to the characters more and more.

Notably, Tremblay writes a variety of characters convincingly. Whether it’s a pregnant woman struggling with an unusual eating disorder, a paranoid blogger chronicling the impending apocalypse, or a sweet-tempered five-year-old boy, Tremblay writes each with equal authenticity.

"It's Against the Law to Feed the Ducks,” one of the more affecting stories, demonstrates Tremblay’s strengths in subtlety and characterization. Five-year-old Danny accompanies his parents and baby sister on vacation to Lake Winnipesauke. An unspoken catastrophe strikes that, in his naivety, Danny cannot comprehend. Through Danny’s perspective, readers get mere glimpses into the situation – people deserting the town, his parents speaking in whispers, the electricity shutting off. The child’s innocence is heartbreaking.

Danny tries to send his ears out again and this time he hears his parents in the hallway. They speak with one voice. He hears words that he doesn’t understand. They might be arguing and they might be laughing and they might be crying but it doesn’t matter, because Danny knows tonight was the best night of their vacation.

Despite the stories’ short lengths—there is even a flash fiction piece—Tremblay gives his characters distinct voices and relatabilty. His ability to write fully developed and genuine characters helps keep even the more absurd stories relevant.

Even with the often dark subject matter, Tremblay scatters hints of absurdity and dark humor throughout the stories. In “The Strange Case of Nicholas Thomas: An Excerpt from A History of The Longesian Library,” citizens of an ancient city dread the spontaneous and mysterious appearance of balloons that return every 19 years. Some shrink in fear, others believe they are a gift from God. “The Blog at the End of the World,” formatted in a series of reverse-chronological blog entries, comes complete with typos and reader comments. One blog comment states, “sorry about your friend its so scarey that were all gonna die.” Another reads,”Hi remember me? Come check out my new gambling site for all the best poker and sports action. It’s awesome. http://www.gamblor234.net.” Not even an apocalypse will keep the spammers down. The comic relief not only offers momentary reprieve from heavy plots, but again amplifies the surreal nature of the stories.

In the Mean Time is at once eerie, disturbing, challenging, and wonderful. Tremblay challenges readers’ sense of security and may not leave any parting consolation—except perhaps to say that we’re all in this together.

[Jasmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I already reviewed this once and goodreads ate it, and I'm sleepy so highlights:

1. I liked paul tremblay when I talked to him about crime novels so I started his book a year ago.

2. I picked it back up and finished it this week.

3. It is very well written, but I don't answer followups about short story plots.

4. I'd like to read a novel by him.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

It pains me a great deal to admit this, but this book is wonderful. Slightly bent, funny, bizarre, and awesome, often at the same time, Tremblay's series of tales are remarkable, and it's no wonder his star is rising as fast as it is. Scratch that: it's a mystery why it isn't rising faster. Definitely one of my favourite books this year. (And I'm still angry about it.)

[Alisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

These stories fell short of my expectations, probably because I already read "A Head Full of Ghosts" and was expecting much of the same: interesting characters and storylines, solid writing, all the good stuff. While the writing was largely good, the stories were lacking. None of them felt complete, and I could not figure out the point of many of them. The first story, "The Teacher," had a powerful, unsettling, uncomfortable mood which pulled me in, but I could not say the same for the others. I ended up bored and skimming through the book.

[Nicholas Kaufmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of mini-masterpieces about the end of the world, both actually and personally. I hate Paul Tremblay for being such a talented writer. Or I would if he had a uvula. But he doesn't, so I take pity on him. You should, too.

[Caleb Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

Twitter Review: #ITMT In The Mean Time by Paul Tremblay @paulGtremblay http://bit.ly/bfWKjw

#ITMT story1: The ticking clock is a child’s impending pain. Incredible suspense. I suffered an entire life during this story.

#ITMT story2: Does simple psychosis explain the girl's 2nd head? Her mother's unhealthy support of the condition tears me apart.

#ITMT story3: like a scary retelling of Barthleme's The Balloon through the meta lens of academic legacy.Starts simply clever but ends deep.

#ITMT story4: Procreation, like hunger, is instinctual and ultimately insatiable. One character grows a child. The other eats dirt.

#ITMT story5: Sketches map a metamorphosis plague. Evenson-esque imagery with all the Tremblay emotion I am coming to love.

#ITMT story6: Plant-like growths overtake the world. Two sisters watch it steal their parents. The life cycle through magical realism.

#ITMT story7: Secret-eating spiders wait patiently for food. A lighter story in terms of theme, but no less creepy than the rest.

#ITMT story8: the Jewish aspect feels forced but otherwise a truly haunting tale. Nothing sadder than a caste teased with hope.

#ITMT story9: One brother escapes a childhood he remembers by billboard advertisements. Too short of a story. I want more pages.

#ITMT story10: Blog comments document a recent string of aneurysm deaths. The juxtaposition of casual banter and the serious epidemic works.

#ITMT story11: An isolated neighborhood feels like an unreal limbo. Residential expansion means personal implosion.

#ITMT story12: 2 people literally trapped between the floors of a multi-storied building. Are the floors meant to be heaven and hell?

#ITMT story13: A border patrol agent confiscates a child's tooth. The stolen sentiment tears him apart. Meant to be a novel, @paulGtremblay

#ITMT story14: A comparatively traditional story. A family trying to hide its poverty from the kids. Probably better if I wasn't drunk.

#ITMT story15: surviving an apocalypse in an amusement park. Like trying to end the collection on a happy note, but still fitting blood in.

#ITMT review: At times Aimee Bender minus the domesticity, add humor, mix with welcomed introspection. I'll be reading more @paulGtremblay

[Patrickmalka · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading this book for years now and have to sadly say that I've finally finished it. The slow pace is due to two factors: one, in general, I tend to read many collections and anthologies simultaneously so it can take me a while to finish any one book but when I start finishing them, I finish many at once. Second, and more relevant to this review, Paul Tremblay writes stories that need to be studied and digested properly. It's not necessarily easy reading but if you take a bit of time with them, they are incredibly satisfying. I couldn't bring myself to read a few in a row.

Most of the stories in this collection are really claustrophobic looks at different scenarios. The lead off story "The Teacher" is one of my all time favourite stories. It's a look at the deterioration of one teenage girl's family and school life due to a young and enthusiastic teacher's unusual (and very dark) semester long lesson. A lot of the story deals with pretty mundane stuff and that's where the strength of the story comes from. The large majority of the stories deal with end of the world scenarios but instead of writing these sprawling detailed works where the end is on full display, we get intimate looks at what the end looks like for specific people. One of the best examples is "The Blog at the end of the world" which is actually written in blog format. That kind of gimmick usually turns me off but it was so genuinely well done that by the end of the story, I had to remind myself that I wasn't reading a blog, that a beautifully fleshed out story just happened.

Every story is fantastic in its own way though I liked some more than others. One of the reasons I singled out the two stories above is because they were originally published by Chizine, the publisher of this and many other collections which to me, are currently setting the bar for genre publishing, they're that good. This collection is a fantastic introduction to the kinds of works they put out. Other highly recommended collections include John Mantooth's Shoebox train wreck, Ian Rogers' Every house is haunted and David Nickle's Monstrous Affections to name a very unfair few. Truth be told I could name them all but that would take away from the point of this review. Paul Tremblay is an amazing writer.

[Jody · Rating 5 out of 5]

IN THE MEAN TIME by Paul Tremblay



IN THE MEAN TIME by Paul Tremblay is a collection of weird short fiction that lives up to its title, offering readers fifteen sociopolitical tales that inform us of inner conflict as well as interpersonal conflicts, world-ending plagues, psychological horror, and inconsolable loss as they lead us down dangerous avenues where adaptability and resiliency are the only means of defense and survival. IN THE MEAN TIME unfolds in a merciless world not unlike our own, and yet distinctly different from ours – as different and distinct as the writing style and literary voice employed in the telling of these tales.


The first story-offering is titled “The Teacher” in which a high school teacher employs unorthodox methodology to instruct his students on the subject of violence. This story is one of my favorites. The rest of the stories in order of TOC are as follows: “The Two-Headed Girl” – in which a young child compensates for loss in a most unusual manner; “The Strange Case of Nicholas Thomas: An Excerpt from A History of the Longesian Library” – where readers of Tremblay’s novella CITY PIER: ABOVE AND BELOW revisit City in a tale about the mysterious balloons of Annotte that appear every nineteen years and wreak havoc on the residents; “Feeding the Machine” – a cautionary tale about denial and sublimating suicidal urges; “Figure 5” – a visually stunning, other-worldly story about the merging of art and plague, bringing to mind the Garten der Luste triptych painted by Hieronymus Bosch, another favorite of mine; “Growing Things” – in which two young sisters battle urban botany gone terribly wrong; “Harold the Spider Man” – gives us a recluse who keeps some unusual eight legged pets with odd appetites; “Rhymes with Jew” – a sociopolitical tale about class distinction; “The Marlborough Man Meets the End” – three brothers wage war on advertizing and the destruction of habitat; “The Blog at the End of the World” – an online blogger who details mysterious deaths occurring in and around her city; “The People Who Live Near Me” – psychological horror utilizing the unreliable narrator in a tale about projective identification and decompensation, my third favorite in this collection; “There’s No Light Between the Floors” – a nuanced tale with a nod to Lovecraft about the survivors of an apocalyptic event; “Headstones in Your Pocket” – a USA border patrol agent will stop at nothing to quell his haunted past; “It’s Against the Law to Feed the Ducks” – a riff on Shirley Jackson’s “The Summer People” about a family on vacation trying to cope with the disappearance of fellow vacationers; “We Will Never Live in the Castle” – another riff on a Shirley Jackson story, her famous and last novel WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE, in which a disenfranchised teenage boy sets up housekeeping in an abandoned amusement park after an end-of-the-world disaster has occurred, and lays siege to “Cinderella’s Castle”.


Paul Tremblay is the author of COMPOSITIONS FOR THE YOUNG AND OLD, his first collection of short fiction; two novellas titled CITY PIER: ABOVE AND BELOW and THE HARLEQUIN AND THE TRAIN; THE LITTLE SLEEP and its sequel NO SLEEP TILL WONDERLAND, two Chandleresque crime noir novels featuring protagonist Mark Genevich, the narcoleptic detective.

[M Griffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first saw Paul Tremblay's name mentioned in the blogs of several other writers I enjoy, so it should be no surprise that I enjoy the fictional worlds he creates. I love the way Tremblay balances strange and playful elements against emotional realism and seriousness. These stories take chances, but never leave the reader behind in pursuit of writerly flourishes or abstractions.

The bulk of the collection is comprised of whimsical yet dark pieces existing in a sort of no-man's-land between genre fantasy, thinking person's horror and the absurdist-realist balancing act of Aimee Bender or Donald Barthelme. Think "weird fiction" in the modernist sense, rather than Weird Tales or Lovecraft. Many of these stories would be as much at home in the New Yorker as a genre periodical, though the oddity and off-kilter of Tremblay's work will certainly please readers geared toward the fantastic or the dark.

Earlier pieces address birth, childhood and youth, as in the memorable "The Teacher," where a class full of kids follow a teacher to cult-like extremes in pursuit of a difficult lesson, or "It's Against the Law to Feed the Ducks," which depicts a strange family vacation full of delusion and deception. In the middle are a few slight pieces, more like vignettes than stories, but later on the collection moves on to address post-apocalypse or "breakdown of society" scenarios, in every case without explaining what happened, or how. "We Will Never Live in the Castle," in which characters try to survive in an a disintegrating amusement park, is a highlight.

Though often weirdly troubling, Tremblay's tales are direct in the telling, emotionally honest and straightforward enough to be easily understood. By turns funny, shocking, disturbing, touching, often all the above in the space of a single story, In the Mean Time leaves me extremely impressed by Tremblay's craft and his intelligence. I highly recommended this adventurous and marvelously weird collection.

[Barbara Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I re-read this to take away the taste of the John Shirley anthology, and it worked. With Tremblay you don't know what is coming next, but the odds are that it will be strange and cool. Probably best characterised as slipstream, with some being absurdist and others realistic.
The stories are up and down, of course, but most of them strike home. The strongest may be We Will Never Live in the Castle, a post-apoc story of doomed love and revenge in a derelict theme park. Love! Death! Minigolf!

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unsettling is the best way to describe this collection of stories or better yet as one Goodreads reviewer described it "stories of personal & social catastrophes."
As with most short story collections some fell a little flat but I'm surprised that I haven't heard more about this writer. Weird, terrifying, and thought-provoking.

[Karen Heuler · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first story in this book, "The Teacher," is extraordinary. A charismatic teacher shows a very disturbing video, frame by frame, as students and teacher alike are changed by the experience. One of the best stories I've read recently.

[Daniel Short · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoughtful stories and a different look from Paul Tremblay. Excellent!

[H.L. Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection is ridiculously good. I read a few stories of his in anthologies and HAD to pick this up based on those stories. I was not disappointed. Looking forward to his new novel!

[Jessica T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot believe that more people haven't read these short stories. THEY ARE FUCKING AMAZING!!! Dark and strange... highly recommend.

[Sarindre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review originally posted Geeks and Geeklets

Synopsis:

How can I even begin to describe this collection! Absolutely amazing is the best way. There are 15 short stories in this collection and they range from a two headed girl whose second head is always changing into historical and fictional characters, to a quiet apocalyptic tale of a family camping in the woods while the whole world starts to disappear. There is also the haunting story "Rhymes with Jew" which left me in tears. These stories delve into the lives of people going though a traumatic event, whether they realise it or not and each of these characters are living their lives in a world that is collapsing all around them, either figuratively or literally. Here is the list of all the stories in this collection:

"The Teacher"
"The Two-Headed Girl"
"The Strange Case of Nicholas Thomas: An Excerpt from a History of the Longesian Library"
"Feeding the Machine"
"Figure 5"
"Growing Things"
"Harold the Spider Man"
"Rhymes with Jew"
"The Marlborough Man Meets the End"
"The Blog at the End of the World"
"The People Who Live Near Me"
"There's No Light Between Floors"
"Headstones in Your Pocket"
"It's Against the Law to Feed the Ducks"
"We Will Never Live in the Castle"

Final Thoughts: I was actually given the suggestion to read this by Paul Tremblay himself on Twitter. After reviewing A Head Full of Ghosts, he responded to me and told me that the original version of "The Growing Things" was located in this collection, which of course meant that I had to read it right away. I am so glad that I listened to him because this is one of the best short story collections I have ever read. They were gripping and traumatic and at times left you guessing as to what you read and the true meaning behind the words.

As I read the stories, I felt that I was part of these worlds, which when looking at the context of most of these, seems terrifying! I could see myself as the mother in "It's Against the Law to Feed the Ducks," protecting my children until the end especially when there is no way out. I could feel myself under the rubble and in the presents of the Old Gods in "There's No Light Between Floors." And as I said already "Rhymes with Jew" left me in tears as I cried for a child that is not mine. The most gripping part of these stories is that many of them are told in the voice of a child. Since I have became a mother, I have found that this is something that can really affect me in a different way. I am drawn to what is happening with children and always think, "What if that was my child?"

I read a review of ITMT by Richard Thomas over at The Nervous Breakdown and it really touched on everything I was thinking. He titles his Amazon review with "Sometimes the apocalypse ends with a whimper, not a bang" which I can only assume is taken from The Hollow Men by T.S. Eloit where in the final stanza he says "This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but a whimper." I find that this is a great way to describe these tales. Not all of them are epic, heck not all of them you would even feel are completely apocalyptic. But maybe these tales are personal apocalypses where everything is ending in a persons mind whether they are going crazy or there is a breakdown in perception and reality.

While researching this book, I found a great site which had Paul Tremblay create a music playlist that related to each of the stories he wrote. Check it out here! PS - picking "Mad World" by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules for "The Teacher" is perfect. It made me think of the movie Donnie Darko which was haunting and would fit perfectly in this collection.

I give this book a 10 out of 10 (Audible version 8/10 since I was not a huge fan of the reader) and will probably reread it over and over just so I can try and full grasp the entire picture. I even want to purchase the paperback edition so that I can have it in my hands and I think that reading it and not just listening will give me an all new perspective.

[Brandon Tietz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been reading a lot of collections lately. For the uninitiated, collections compared to novels are more difficult to sell, both to the publishing house and the consumer. Why? Because people prefer that “one big story” instead of “a bunch of little ones.” That, and it’s far easier to market a novel with its one synopsis compared to a collection with its multiple ones. For years, it’s been like that, so when a collection does come out, one would expect it to be exceptional.

So here are some collections that I’ve read:

-"Rust & Bone" by Craig Davidson
-"Haunted" by Chuck Palahniuk
-"Knockemstiff" by Donald Ray Pollock

Of course, the list goes on, but these three I think are most relevant to my (and possibly your) literary palette if you’re from the school of Velvet or Cult, or even if you’re just into a darker sort of fiction (don’t make me say “transgressive”).

Paul Tremblay’s "In the Mean Time" travels along the same lines as the aforementioned. It’s dark, haunting, and pretty f***ing beautiful at times, if I do say so myself. Sometimes it’s terrifying and sometimes sad, but sometimes you don’t know what it is—only that you’re paying attention and waiting for that particular void to be filled. Keeping comparisons light, the collection, a Chizine publication, does something that the other three do not: it varies. It changes pace, tone, and even genre.

Tremblay’s story “The Two-Headed Girl,” (which translated to a fantastic cover, by the way) is an examination of identity and deformity the likes of which I’ve never read, a circus sideshow act within suburban America. He gives us his take on horror in “Figure 5,” a tale of plague survivors so fantastically detailed the reader will cringe. Tremblay is even able to make antagonistic balloons work in his piece “The Strange Case of Nicholas Thomas,” which, all things considered, stuck with me for days considering its imagery of looming, seemingly innocent evil.

Of course, like most collections, there are going to be stories that don’t work for the reader as much as others. “It’s Against the Law to Feed the Ducks” follows a family on the run from a catastrophic event, and the story did what a story should do: sucked me in, kept me moving right along with them, but there’s a major unknown in this piece that isn’t revealed. As a reader, I wanted a certain amount of closure that I didn’t get.

The main strength of In the Mean Time is that this is one of those few collections that you could read straight through. Like I said, I’ve read collections from Chuck and Craig and Donald, but I always got worn out and had to put them down after a few pieces. Call it consistency if you want, but reading story after story of shock, depravity, shock gets a little daunting. Tremblay mixes it up, keeps you on your toes, and this book serves as a showcase for his various writing talents. With In the Mean Time, you don’t get one flavor on repeat, so go into it ready to sample a very wide array of literature with this one. You won’t be disappointed.

Brandon Tietz (author of "Out of Touch")
www.wearevespertine.com

[David Thirteen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of short stories is much more apocalypse centered compared to Tremblay’s recent novels, yet they contain many interesting artifacts used in A Head Full of Ghost and Disappearance at Devil’s Rock. It’s almost like getting a peek into the author’s toolbox. The writing is rock solid but the collection has its ups and downs, as collections often do. In this case, I found that many of the stories verged on being vignettes or character studies rather than fully fleshed out stories. As I neared the end of the collection, I began yearning for something to sink my teeth into. Tremblay is a very subtle author, which is one of the things I love about his novels, but the novels also have very substantial plots and that is what I wanted more of. To be fair, I probably would have enjoyed more of the stories presented here to a greater extent had I spread them out, reading one or two of them between other books. So, part of it is my fault for being greedy and consuming them all at once. Even with all that said, there’s no denying his talent and there were a few stories I loved (such as Growing Things, The Teacher, and Headstones in Your Pocket) and several others that will stick with me for years to come.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first short story collection and I hope that I haven't been spoiled by how good it was!
Overall, I really enjoyed all of these stories and I can definitely see myself going back in the future to reread some of my favorites. Beautiful, luring writing style.

These stories all have a type of nostalgic, but eerie attraction. While reading, I imagined them all with an overcast sky unless described otherwise. The description on the back of the book gives a great insight to the atmosphere of the rest of the book.
Don't expect any closure from these stories; you're most often not given a clear ending, which is part of what makes them so alluring and haunting.

My favorite story was "Rhymes With Jew."

I'm excited to read more of Paul Tremblay's work!

[Cory · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely some great stories here, but on the whole, the collection was a bit too apocalyptic for my tastes. Growing Things, The Strange Case of Nicholas Thomas, Headstones in Your Pocket and It's Against the Law to Feed the Ducks were all quite good, but several of the stories just never quite worked for me. Thankfully, Tremblay's a powerful and sensible writer, so even in a story that didn't sell me on the plot, there were sentence and paragraph gems sprinkled throughout.

[Frances · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange and heart-twisting stories; particularly fond of "The Strange Case of Nicholas Thomas: An Excerpt from A History of the Longesian Library". It's late and I'm feeling inarticulate and not a little sad (possibly just finishing this has something to do with that), but really need to say these are lovely.

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not much of a short story reader. They just seem like a random chapter taken out of a book, and usually don't go anywhere. I feel they are best when they have outstanding dialogue or some sort of twist. Of course, there's always a limit to what can be done.
It was okay, but I always felt underwhelmed by the end of each story.

[Maggie Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tremblay has a way with words. A terribly awful, horrifying way with words. His stories stick in your head after you read them. You carry around a little sack of disturbance in your brain for a bit when you finish one. In the Mean Time are stories about our world, but where things have gone wrong. It's a sad, unnerving collection, but beautifully written. Just sometimes beauty is very ugly...

[Abriana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh. I don't even know if I should count this as "read." I skipped around so much and stalled out on like half of these stories. Depressing in a shallow, ugly way. Maybe there's charm in this writing for someone else, but Paul Tremblay is just not my type.

[E.]

The Teacher (4)
Sometimes the hostile reality of this world can really jade a person over time. Sometimes it's just one semester of school.

The Two Headed Girl (4)
Don't you hate it when your book club thinks your other head is the author of the book you're reading?

[Sheri White · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great short story collection. Even the stories that weren't my favorites were very well-written. I would definitely buy more of Paul Tremblay's work.