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Dig Ten Graves
It Wuill All Be Carried Away
Bleed Out
Emancipation, with Teeth
From Here to Oblivion
Gator Boy
Incident on a Rain-Soaked Corner
Always Too Late
The Most Natural Thing in the World
Heart
The Bad Little Pet
Bleed Out
Emancipation, with Teeth
From Here to Oblivion
Gator Boy
Incident on a Rain-Soaked Corner
Always Too Late
The Most Natural Thing in the World
Heart
The Bad Little Pet
- GenresHorror
151 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 4, 2011
6 people are currently reading
62 people want to read
About the author
Heath Lowrance
26 books100 followersHeath Lowrance is the author of HAWTHORNE: TALES OF A WEIRDER WEST, THE AXEMAN OF STORYVILLE, CITY OF HERETICS, THE BASTARD HAND, DIG TEN GRAVES, FIGHT CARD: BLUFF CITY BRAWLER (as Jack Tunney) and the novella "Miles to Little Ridge".
His other stories have appeared in the anthologies OFF THE RECORD, BURNING BRIDGES, PULP INK 2, LEE, HOODS, HOT RODS & HELLCATS and 5 BROKEN WINCHESTERS.
He has been a movie theater manager, a tour guide at Sun Studio, a singer in a punk band, and a regular donor of blood for money. In 48 years, he's engaged in a hundred years worth of anti-social behavior. Originally from Tennessee, he now lives in Lansing, Michigan.
His other stories have appeared in the anthologies OFF THE RECORD, BURNING BRIDGES, PULP INK 2, LEE, HOODS, HOT RODS & HELLCATS and 5 BROKEN WINCHESTERS.
He has been a movie theater manager, a tour guide at Sun Studio, a singer in a punk band, and a regular donor of blood for money. In 48 years, he's engaged in a hundred years worth of anti-social behavior. Originally from Tennessee, he now lives in Lansing, Michigan.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
October 29, 2011
I feel like I should cut to the chase for Dig Ten Graves. Write BUY IT and leave it at that.
I'm seriously tempted. Let the book talk for itself.
That's easier said than done as there are so many voices here, different styles and genres that will keep you guessing from one to the next.
Heath Lowrance amazed me with the skill he showed in The Bastard Hand, so I was excited and curious about his release of short work.
What did I find?
More shining gold. More brilliance. More black holes to get sucked into.
Lots of these pieces had me genuinely on edge. One in particular had me wincing and wondering whether I could go on (Of course I did. Had to). All of them were great reads and worth the entry price by themselves.
My favourite, though, was the opening piece, I Will Be Carried Away. It's not just my favourite here, but ranks in my top 5 short stories of the year (and those of you who know me will know that I've read hundreds of the things).
It's a superb tale about being haunted by memories, being marked by the tings we do early in life, growing up, messing up and moving on.
Man finds out ex-girlfriend is dead. Memories drip back to him from a rusty bucket inside his brain. There are things he can't remember and things he's going to find out. It's beautiful and powerful and superbly well-rounded, just like I want my short tales to be.
There's something of a theme through the collection, weaving with the 'now you see it, now you don't' thread of an embroidery. It has to do with what is commonly called a mid-life crisis. It also suggests a mid-life crisis following a difficult childhood, troubled adolescence and a mixed-up start in adulthood.
Not that I can imagine a man as talented and handsome as Mr Lowrance struggling with such matters.
There were times in the book where I thought the author had got into my head. Read my thoughts. Painted my own fears onto a wall I couldn't miss. Observed me wondering why alarm clocks and work and routines are still ruling my life when I'm old enough (way old enough) to know better.
A quote from a later piece, a tale of a suicidal man whose attempts at suicide are about as futile as his existence:
"He'd begun to suspect that there'd been no turn, that it had been the road he'd always been on, since the day he was born. If God handed out road maps to every soul about to be incarnated on Earth, he'd probably given Henry the one that traversed all the rocky paths, all the unpaved back roads and quagmires and potholes. The one that led, finally, to a huge drop into the crapper."
With humour like that, the difficult subject of meaning to life is tackled with humour and left for the reader to ponder.
Terrific stuff.
I'm seriously tempted. Let the book talk for itself.
That's easier said than done as there are so many voices here, different styles and genres that will keep you guessing from one to the next.
Heath Lowrance amazed me with the skill he showed in The Bastard Hand, so I was excited and curious about his release of short work.
What did I find?
More shining gold. More brilliance. More black holes to get sucked into.
Lots of these pieces had me genuinely on edge. One in particular had me wincing and wondering whether I could go on (Of course I did. Had to). All of them were great reads and worth the entry price by themselves.
My favourite, though, was the opening piece, I Will Be Carried Away. It's not just my favourite here, but ranks in my top 5 short stories of the year (and those of you who know me will know that I've read hundreds of the things).
It's a superb tale about being haunted by memories, being marked by the tings we do early in life, growing up, messing up and moving on.
Man finds out ex-girlfriend is dead. Memories drip back to him from a rusty bucket inside his brain. There are things he can't remember and things he's going to find out. It's beautiful and powerful and superbly well-rounded, just like I want my short tales to be.
There's something of a theme through the collection, weaving with the 'now you see it, now you don't' thread of an embroidery. It has to do with what is commonly called a mid-life crisis. It also suggests a mid-life crisis following a difficult childhood, troubled adolescence and a mixed-up start in adulthood.
Not that I can imagine a man as talented and handsome as Mr Lowrance struggling with such matters.
There were times in the book where I thought the author had got into my head. Read my thoughts. Painted my own fears onto a wall I couldn't miss. Observed me wondering why alarm clocks and work and routines are still ruling my life when I'm old enough (way old enough) to know better.
A quote from a later piece, a tale of a suicidal man whose attempts at suicide are about as futile as his existence:
"He'd begun to suspect that there'd been no turn, that it had been the road he'd always been on, since the day he was born. If God handed out road maps to every soul about to be incarnated on Earth, he'd probably given Henry the one that traversed all the rocky paths, all the unpaved back roads and quagmires and potholes. The one that led, finally, to a huge drop into the crapper."
With humour like that, the difficult subject of meaning to life is tackled with humour and left for the reader to ponder.
Terrific stuff.
July 21, 2016
Earlier, I enjoyed reading Heath Lowrance's MILES TO LITTLE RIDGE, so I decided to try his short fiction collection, DIG TEN GRAVES. It's a true ringer, I'm happy to report. I heard the echoes of Stephen King and Mr. Poe in a psychological horror tale like "Emancipation, With Teeth" where Ernie comes to grips with his rather drab lifestyle. My favorite was "It Will Be Carried Away" which originally appeared in the fine journal CHIZINE. The narrator tells us about his past lover named Charon Whitfield who was found OD'd in the backseat of her car somewhere north of Detroit. The eerie story masterfully weaves back and forth in time shifts as we make some startling discoveries about them both. Choice dark humor arises in "From Here to Oblivion" as Henry Black has the devil of a time committing suicide before his ex's wedding date. I found a clever imagination at work in these stories, making them a lot of fun with their unexpected twists and leaps. That's what struck me throughout my reading. Terrific short fiction.
October 20, 2011
Woah, I expected this tittle collection to be pretty good, but not actually be even BETTER than THE BASTARD HAND, which was a very strong debut. That surprised the hell out of me. There are several things to like about DIG TEN GRAVES, for the literary hard nut to the casual reader. Lowrance's story are very raw, sometimes almost devoid of setting. They are character, emotion, unavoidable fates. It's brilliant and it's going to make Heath Lowrance big.
September 16, 2011
Great collection of stories that work well side by side. Worthy follow-up to The Bastard Hand, but if this also serves as a great introduction to the author as well!
March 27, 2012
Dig Ten Graves is a short story collection. There are eleven of them. The eleventh is a bonus track – not really a part of the collection. It’s a good story though so I’m glad it was included. I think that, currently, Dig Ten Graves is only available in e-book format.
I read the first few graves in late July. Then I went through some edits on Salazar and put it on hold. I cam back to it in September and read all the rest. This is the kind of book I would have loved in my late-teens/early twenties, when I was filling my head with Camus, Kerouac, and Colin Wilson. I loved it now – I just don’t have the same set of friends around to share it with. Except you, I didn’t mean to forget you. If only we were in a field late at night watching out for shooting stars, with no work in the morning (because we don’t work). I’d be filling you head with how good with of these stories are. My thumbed and scribbled copy (e-books didn’t exist) would be in your coat pocket. And, even though I’ve already recited each tale in turn, you will go home and read it from cover-to-cover: so tomorrow you can recite each tale back to me. Our copies of The Bastard Hand having been devoured months ago.
Each short story, grave, has a death in there somewhere. They grow darker as you delve deeper in to the book, upping the dose to keep you high. These tales, full of dark humour, could have come straight from the writing shed of Roald Dahl – perhaps after he’s spent a night drinking wine with Kafka. This is the Roald Dahl of Tales of the Unexpected. Dark stories – not all with a twist at the end: a few start off pretty twisted. I’d never thought of Dahl as being a noir writer before, but I do now. These books aren’t for children (neither are Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected) but I think I’d like to read a children’s story by Lowrance: with all the sinister undercurrents of James and The Giant Peach, or Matilda.
I’ve been avoiding talking about the graces themselves, deliberately. I don’t like to talk about the plots of the novels I review, in case I spoil them. As these are short stories I can’t even hint too much. There is a nice one (which reminded my of The Magic Finger, and is where I first picked up the Dahl theme) where the hunter becomes the hunted. This is echoed much later in The Bad Little Pet. There are some great lines too, here’s my favourite: It lay dead in the tub, already seeming to go stiff, like a snakeskin or a used condom.
These stories would have inspired André Breton. They are full of dark surreal images, a delving into the subconscious desires of man. He would have loved the humour, the gallows humour, the weak laugh into the face of the abyss, is what surrealism was all about. I have a short anthology of Humour Noir by Breton, these stories would have been given a honourable mention had Breton been writing it today.
I read a story a night, and wished there were more. I’ve downloaded That Dammed Coyote Hill, to get my fix. I’ll leave it a while first. I’m part way through another collection: The Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles. by Edward A. Grainger. It’s a book I downloaded after reading a blog post about it on Heath Lowrance’s blog. I warn you now – if you head over to Heath’s blog at Psycho Noir don’t read his book recommendations or his series on noir through time – it’ll cost you a pretty penny. If you are wiser than me, you’ll print of the posts and keep them in your pocket ready to pull out each time you enter a second-hand bookshop.
If you decide to buy this book you could ask Heath for a Kindlegraph.
I read the first few graves in late July. Then I went through some edits on Salazar and put it on hold. I cam back to it in September and read all the rest. This is the kind of book I would have loved in my late-teens/early twenties, when I was filling my head with Camus, Kerouac, and Colin Wilson. I loved it now – I just don’t have the same set of friends around to share it with. Except you, I didn’t mean to forget you. If only we were in a field late at night watching out for shooting stars, with no work in the morning (because we don’t work). I’d be filling you head with how good with of these stories are. My thumbed and scribbled copy (e-books didn’t exist) would be in your coat pocket. And, even though I’ve already recited each tale in turn, you will go home and read it from cover-to-cover: so tomorrow you can recite each tale back to me. Our copies of The Bastard Hand having been devoured months ago.
Each short story, grave, has a death in there somewhere. They grow darker as you delve deeper in to the book, upping the dose to keep you high. These tales, full of dark humour, could have come straight from the writing shed of Roald Dahl – perhaps after he’s spent a night drinking wine with Kafka. This is the Roald Dahl of Tales of the Unexpected. Dark stories – not all with a twist at the end: a few start off pretty twisted. I’d never thought of Dahl as being a noir writer before, but I do now. These books aren’t for children (neither are Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected) but I think I’d like to read a children’s story by Lowrance: with all the sinister undercurrents of James and The Giant Peach, or Matilda.
I’ve been avoiding talking about the graces themselves, deliberately. I don’t like to talk about the plots of the novels I review, in case I spoil them. As these are short stories I can’t even hint too much. There is a nice one (which reminded my of The Magic Finger, and is where I first picked up the Dahl theme) where the hunter becomes the hunted. This is echoed much later in The Bad Little Pet. There are some great lines too, here’s my favourite: It lay dead in the tub, already seeming to go stiff, like a snakeskin or a used condom.
These stories would have inspired André Breton. They are full of dark surreal images, a delving into the subconscious desires of man. He would have loved the humour, the gallows humour, the weak laugh into the face of the abyss, is what surrealism was all about. I have a short anthology of Humour Noir by Breton, these stories would have been given a honourable mention had Breton been writing it today.
I read a story a night, and wished there were more. I’ve downloaded That Dammed Coyote Hill, to get my fix. I’ll leave it a while first. I’m part way through another collection: The Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles. by Edward A. Grainger. It’s a book I downloaded after reading a blog post about it on Heath Lowrance’s blog. I warn you now – if you head over to Heath’s blog at Psycho Noir don’t read his book recommendations or his series on noir through time – it’ll cost you a pretty penny. If you are wiser than me, you’ll print of the posts and keep them in your pocket ready to pull out each time you enter a second-hand bookshop.
If you decide to buy this book you could ask Heath for a Kindlegraph.
July 21, 2014
There are some really great stories in this collection. The collection flies out of the gate with It Will All Be Carried Away. I thought this was a great story and really set the bar pretty high for the rest of the stories. Although the bar was high, Heath continued to hit that high water mark with other great stories.
From ghost stories, to men slowly going crazy, to old school PI (ish) stories, There is a wide range of stories that all show this man has writing chops. I must admit I already liked The Bastard Hand and Miles to Little Ridge, so I knew this would be a good read.
If you have already know Mr. Lowrance's work but haven't read this, what ya waiting for? If you are unfamiliar with his work, this is a good place to start but be prepared to add his other two works to your TBR pile.
From ghost stories, to men slowly going crazy, to old school PI (ish) stories, There is a wide range of stories that all show this man has writing chops. I must admit I already liked The Bastard Hand and Miles to Little Ridge, so I knew this would be a good read.
If you have already know Mr. Lowrance's work but haven't read this, what ya waiting for? If you are unfamiliar with his work, this is a good place to start but be prepared to add his other two works to your TBR pile.
June 13, 2013
I have liked Heath Lowrance's longer works -- "The Bastard Hand" and "City of Heretics" -- a lot. I also thoroughly enjoy his "weird Western" stories featuring his character Hawthorne. But so far, out all his output, this is what I've enjoyed most. The short story is back in vogue, and there are a ton of excellent practitioners right now, but Lowrance is one of the more artful and entertaining ones going. A warped O. Henry...a funhouse Guy de Maupassant...an R-rated Twilight Zone. Not all of these stories have twist endings, not all of them have gleams of dark humor, and not all of them are surreal. But the quality is consistent, the depth of Lowrance's imagination is great, and his skill is evident.
July 27, 2012
Dig Ten Graves is an eclectic collection of some really good short stories. All of them range from crime to horror to sci-fi. Lowrance is a versatile writer with a very entertaining imagination and this is a great place to start reading him. After this I'm looking forward to checking out his full length novels.
November 6, 2015
3.75. That was some good, solid, clean and engaging storytelling, I say. Though the style varied from story to story, I was always intrigued to see what new horror was lurking around the next corner. I think my favorite one was "Bleed Out" and "The Bad Little Pet." Very American Horror Story. Wonder what else Lowrance has up their sleeve...?
April 2, 2013
No spoilers here. I really loved this collection of short stories. Dig Ten Graves is a must read. The stories are dark and intense. I was hooked right from the first page. Heath Lowrance is high on my list of authors. Read it and you'll be hooked too.
January 9, 2013
Creepy! I just couldn't read the one about the fingers again. ick! Keep up the fantastic writing Heath! Love the cover...hmmm, some really talented photographer, eh?
April 30, 2021
Heath Lowrance‘s follow up to his classic debut novel THE BASTARD HAND – to be republished later this year – is a searing collection of hard-boiled, dark fiction. The blackest of noir permeates the pages of DIG TEN GRAVES and oozes into its dark alleyways, its blood stained streets and its rain soaked gutters – even the crevices on the faces of its battle scarred and booze battered protagonists. Heath Lowrance’s DIG TEN GRAVES is a lethal cocktail of noir, pulp fiction, horror. bizarro and even sci-fi. There are shades of Kafka and Lovecraft, satire and absurdist humour, chills and sadness. Recommended.
May 13, 2021
Dig Ten Graves is one of those unique short story collections that take you on multiple trips that ultimately set you on the same course. It never gets stale, however. I was introduced to characters that were amoral and moral, pristine and tarnished, law-abiding and criminal. The stories were all well thought out and well written and, well, folks, this is a good read.
I only gave it four stars for the formatting of the edition that I got. Admittedly, I would have liked to see a more professional format, but don't that let you deter you from reading this book. It's a wonderful read that makes this old Goth elder's black heart beat with pulpy-horror goodness.
I only gave it four stars for the formatting of the edition that I got. Admittedly, I would have liked to see a more professional format, but don't that let you deter you from reading this book. It's a wonderful read that makes this old Goth elder's black heart beat with pulpy-horror goodness.
December 12, 2012
The stories were interesting, though nothing was really scary.
May 17, 2017
Fave story, emancipation, with teeth. Lots of wtf moments.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews