The Last Vanishing Man and Other Stories

by Matthew Cheney

Magic stops. Men vanish. Worlds end. Life goes on.  The stories in The Last Vanishing Man start with the end of the world, as a narrator seeks to imagine how the actions of an American terrorist ripple through his family. American violence and masculinity are topics that weave through these stories, as characters of various genders and sexualities get scarred by the wounds of manhood. But though these stories bounce similar themes off each other, they are not narrow in focus or tone. Hard-edged realism lives alongside ghost stories and weird tales; the lyrical tragedy of “A Suicide Gun” sits beside the wild, filthy, absurdist romp that is “The Ballad of Jimmy and Myra”, a murder ballad that might be a lost Weird Al song for a John Waters movie. The collection winds down with an expatriot American living in the melting tundra of Siberia, seeking liberation from the forces that deranged his life, the same forces that shaped and warped the lives of all the other characters in the book. The Last Vanishing Man is organized in four sections. The first section tells tales of people seeking to make sense of history and their place in it, whether the history of a queer sanctuary in Canada or of the unfulfilled dreams of the Warhol star Candy Darling. The second section gives us characters who are each on a quest to understand someone who is gone, vanished into memory or worlds beyond, their stories closer to myth than history. In the third section, lonely men seek meaning in a world where they have lost their way. Their quests become philosophical, even spiritual, as they wander toward something greater than their own transient desires. The final section breaks the book open with extremes of feeling, extremes of strangeness, extremes of horror. The fiercely disturbing story “Patrimony” portrays a post-apocalypse where male power renders the procreation of humanity into torture. “On the Government of the Living” is also a post-apocalyptic story, also a story of children and humanity, but more haunting parable than horror, more Samuel Beckett than Clive Barker.
The Last Vanishing Man is a book for readers seeking more than familiar genre conventions, readers seeking stories that challenge, unsettle, surprise, and sing. These are stories aware of the sufferings of the world, stories of characters tormented by unfulfilled desires and unfathomable violence, but also stories of compassion, of community, of humor, and of infinite possibilities beyond the prison of the self.

Genres: Short Stories

308 pages, Paperback

Published May 2, 2023

About the author

Matthew Cheney’s debut collection of fiction, Blood: Stories, won the Hudson Prize and was published by Black Lawrence Press in 2016. His academic book Modernist Crisis and the Pedagogy of Form: Woolf, Delany, and Coetzee at the Limits of Fiction was published by Bloomsbury in 2020. About That Life: Barry Lopez and the Art of Community will be published by Punctum Books in the winter of 2023 and The Last Vanishing Man and Other Stories will be published by Third Man Books in May 2023.

He is Assistant Professor and Director of Interdisciplinary Studies at Plymouth State University.

His work has been published by Conjunctions, Woolf Studies Annual, One Story, English Journal, Weird Tales, Strange Horizons, Best Gay Stories 2016, Literary Hub, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. He is the former series editor for the Best American Fantasy anthologies, and the co-editor, with Eric Schaller, of the occasional online magazine The Revelator.

Reviews

[Bill Hsu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked Cheney's first collection Blood: Stories, and have been waiting for this for what, almost seven years? Based on the first story, this is certainly worth the wait. "After the End of the End of the World" is about (among other things) stories, but it's so rare that meta-fiction says so much about our broken but still beautiful world, and ends up being so charming, thoughtful and sad.

The title story is an entirely different beast. Two of the central characters are illusionists; this kind of narrative lends itself to uncanny, gently nostalgic treatments like (for example) Steven Millhauser's "Eisenheim the Illusionist". Cheney's includes queer encounters, secret lives, and no overtly supernatural components, other than an unexplained vanishing. It's a memorably wistful and stubbornly open-ended piece.

The gay couple dynamics that open "Winnipesauke Darling" are nicely done. A chance encounter leads to a story of sexual exploration and profound regret, culminating in another mysterious disappearance that's somehow magical and unsettling.

I of course love the title of "Killing Fairies". I can certainly relate to the frustrations of chasing after some talented, charismatic, and elusive guy in college. Melissa's Asperger-y monologues are hilarious. Turns out this is more than a little autobiographical, according to this. No fairy destruction in my love life though.

"Mass" is a literary quest, one of my favorite tropes. The narrator's journey (familiar to Lovecraft fans!) takes him from bibliographical research and a dark historical event (a mass shooting), to the backwoods of New Hampshire to visit a recluse. I was half-expecting some black mass (with goat, perhaps), but the only reference I noticed was a (supposed) quote from theoretical physics: "a tachyonic field of imaginary mass". (According to Wikipedia, "imaginary mass" means the system becomes unstable.) No tentacled creatures, just thoughtful conversations about (perhaps) ideas, escape from and into such, and navigating queer lives in the margins. I love this ending, as usual no resolutions:

The rain continued to fall. All I could do to stay alive was to try to keep moving forward no matter how little the car might move, no matter how deafening the torrent attacked, no matter the floods beneath the wheels, and to hope that somewhere the rain would stop, day would erase the night, the quiet would return, and I could step outside.

The opening of "At the Edge of the Forest" wastes no time introducing us to the main characters and events:

Throughout the day after the funeral, while puttering around the shop, Bryan caught himself thinking of Julia, her memory like a glint at the edge of his sight. He remembered their constant conversations, her insatiable curiosity, her devotion to both him and Cameron, an odd couple she had herself created through a combination of insight and force of will.

Cheney is so skilled with deft sketches of the troubled gay men and their friends; I also love his ear for voice and dialog. The dark, often dreamlike proceedings are infused with a quiet melancholy. There are small slippages that might be supernatural, or just unreliable perceptions and memory, all the more unsettling and memorable.

"A Suicide Gun" is an uncomfortable read, as we follow the protagonist's obsession (a collection of guns used in suicides? whew), sexual exploration, and gradual slide into insanity. Then "The Ballad of Jimmy and Myra" is another take on troubled lives. A very funny one. My favorite of the last section is "A Liberation", with the protagonist going about his life in a matter-of-fact way, despite looming disaster (shades of our climate change crisis). Then his dog's discovery nudges things in a darker direction.

There are a number of great quotes from the interview with Jeff Vandermeer I linked to earlier. For example,

...my fondness for ambiguity is democratic: the truth of stories like “After the End of the End of the World,” “The Last Vanishing Man,” “Mass,” and others is left to readers to decide for themselves.

And:

I think I am drawn to writing short stories because they offer, and I might argue at their best require, space between the lines for readers to find their way. Through the thicket of sadness and whimsy. Though in my case whimsy is perhaps most often just another word for nightmare.

Funny, in the "Readers Also Enjoyed" section, the top book is Kelly Link's new collection. These two books are easily my favorites of 2023 so far.

[Ian Mond]

I’ve long been aware of Cheney’s non-fiction through the thoughtful reviews and essays he published on his website Mumpsimus (now moved to Patreon). I was aware he also wrote fiction, had even won an award for his debut collection Blood: Stories, but I’d never gotten around to picking it up. I’ve now addressed that gap with The Last Vanishing Man, an assured, carefully crafted collection that tends toward the grim and horrific. That’s not to say that the stories are an exercise in bleakness - although it’s clear that Cheney doesn’t have much faith in society as a whole - but instead, they offer a fascinating insight into obsession, violence and loneliness. Most of the stories are written from a queer perspective, stories of unrequited love, of regret, of passions unfulfilled. And yet… again… this is anything other than a painful read. There is genuine beauty in Cheney’s measured, clear-eyed prose, immersing you in his world even if the subject matter is difficult. I loved this book. There isn’t a single dud story. Very highly recommended.

[Redfern Barrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I originally reviewed Matthew Cheney's first short story collection, Blood Stories, for Strange Horizons. Drawn into the vivid characters, strange scenarios, and often twisted storytelling, I was pleased to write a positive rundown of a book that wasn't quite like any I'd read before.

If possible, I'm even more pleased to talk about how much I enjoyed The Last Vanishing Man. Though I was already impressed with his works, Cheney's voice has developed considerably since the first collection, and we're presented with a set of tales that are unabashedly queer, dark, charming, and compelling. From the very first story, stories perspectives are played with, histories are revealed, and all with a brutal, unflinching honesty when it comes to its very human themes.

Many of the stories are tragic, often achingly so, but Cheney is adept at finding the beauty in each of his scenarios. Ordinarily I balk at tragic queer themes, but they're handled with both innovation and sensitivity, and I was hooked to the last page. I even bought an extra copy for my partner.

I couldn't recommend this highly enough.

[Chase · Rating 5 out of 5]

I originally picked up this book thinking it was about the apocalypse. Turns out I was wrong. It is a collection of stories about the world ending for a variety of characters. This book had many heart wrenching stories that resonate with queer existence. This book 100% changed my outlook on life. One of my favorites ever.

[Tucker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a fan of these very gay and horror-ific stories. I posted some thoughts on Medium (unpaywalled link).