No One Dies From Love: Dark Tales of Loss and Longing

by Robert Levy, Paul Tremblay (introduction)

A young boy’s father becomes obsessed with interplanetary visitors; an adolescent’s game reveals devastating possible futures; twin siblings receive a visit from an aunt they don’t remember in the wake of their mother’s disappearance; a grieving widow finds herself drawn into a crypt and the companionship of other mourners left behind; a group of teenage girls at summer camp discover something powerful—and hungry—in the woods; a writer reeling from a splintered relationship attends an infamous theatre devoted to macabre spectacle and fear, discovering forbidden desire and malevolent designs…

From Lambda Literary Award and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author Robert Levy (The Glittering World) comes debut collection No One Dies from Love: Dark Tales of Loss and Longing, featuring twelve tales of horror and desire, love and loss, including the critically acclaimed novella “Anaïs Nin at the Grand Guignol.” Featuring an introduction by Bram Stoker Award-winning author Paul Tremblay.

Genres: Short Stories, Horror, Fiction

258 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 2023

About the author

ROBERT LEVY is an author of unsettling stories and plays whose work has been seen Off-Broadway. A Harvard graduate subsequently trained as a forensic psychologist, his work has been called "frank and funny" (Time Magazine), "idiosyncratic and disarming" (The New York Times), "ambitious and clever" (Variety), "smart" (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) and "bloody brave" (the UK's SFX Magazine).

His first novel, the contemporary dark fairy tale THE GLITTERING WORLD, was published by Gallery/Simon & Schuster and a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award as well as a Lambda Literary Award nominee, and also won an Earphones Award for exceptional audio from Audiofile Magazine. Shorter work has appeared in places like The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Nightmare, Black Static, The Dark, Shadows & Tall Trees, The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction, and The Best Horror of the Year, among many others. His debut collection NO ONE DIES FROM LOVE: Dark Tales of Loss and Longing will be published by Word Horde in 2023.

Robert is a single dad who lives with his children in Brooklyn near a toxic canal, where he is awaiting his mutant powers to develop any day now. He teaches at the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing.

Reviews

[Blair · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘The Closet Game’ is the standout of this collection. A closeted boy plays a game as a teen, and finds it comes back to haunt him as an adult – or, perhaps, it’s the other way around. It embodies the ‘loss and longing’ theme: thwarted desire, the ache of missed chances. My personal favourite was ‘The Rental Sister’, a short, creepy, urban-legend-style tale in a colloquial style, about a young woman in Tokyo who briefly works in the titular role (designed to help hikikomori ease back into the world). ‘Giallo’ is everything you could want in a story called ‘Giallo’, capturing every aspect of the film genre so perfectly and vividly, you’ll never need to watch one again. The queasy, bloody ‘Conversion’ takes a more brutal tack, following a perverted therapist who successfully ‘converts’ an unhappily gay young man, but with horrifyingly extreme results.

I liked ‘The Oestridae’, in which two siblings are blindsided when a previously-unheard-of aunt turns up shortly after their mother’s disappearance. I couldn’t get on with the indulgent ‘The Cenacle’, and ‘My Heart’s Own Desire’ left me with a lot of questions. There’s also the fact that a large proportion of the book is taken up by a novella, ‘Anaïs Nin at the Grand Guignol’. It’s well-written, and a good expression of the collection’s project, so it doesn’t feel out of place; but it’s a big chunk of pages, and I felt I was missing something – some essential context that might have made it more satisfying.

This is a collection united by theme more than anything else, so it’s not easy to find any one point of comparison. After reading ‘The Closet Game’ and ‘The Oestridae’, I felt it was going to be a similar book to What Makes You Think You’re Awake? by Maegan Poland and The Ghost Sequences by A.C. Wise. Yet ‘Ceremonials’ and ‘Giallo’ might slot quite neatly into a Carmen Maria Machado collection, while at other points (e.g. ‘DST (Fall Back)’) I was reminded more of Lovecraftian stylists such as John Langan. In the end No One Dies from Love was a mixed bag for me, simply because the subject matter and particular brand of horror weren’t always to my taste – the stories lost me whenever they veered too far towards dark fantasy – but it was a book that left me impressed with Levy’s skills as a storyteller, and sure I’ll still read more from the author.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

A powerful, lyrical, sometimes gruesome array of queer horror stories. My favorites are the one about the "Aunt" who's some sort of unexplained hungering something (I prefer the lack of explanation), the one that starts in a closet that's also about...the closet, the giallo one (somehow not in Word Horde's giallo anthology), the one that makes the horrors of conversion therapy even worse, and the one with Anaïs Nin and a demon who's maybe not that much worse than all the other men in her life.

[Vonnegut Queenan-Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Levy rocks sm. Highly recommend!

Couple of dull stories in here, but more hits than misses. Favorite by far is The Closet Game 🫵🫡

If you only read one of his short stories make it that one.

[Brenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A daring and thoughtful masterpiece of horror that explores all the facets of humanity. Robert will not leave anything unexplored. And yes, that includes sexuality and some brilliant pieces of erotic horror (NSFW).

This book is a 10/10 for me. I have a lot to learn from this man. From the lush prose to the vivid descriptions of the horrors of life, I fell in love with these stories. Nonetheless this is a collection of short stories, and even though i think every single one is valuable and a must read, I feel compelled to review my favorite stories individually.

The Oestridae (I hope I spelled that correctly):
A strange relative arrives right when Mother disappears. Coincidence? I think not!?!?! This story is deeply atmospheric and I'm grateful I got the chance to read it on a foggy afternoon in Maine.

The Cenacle:
I love stories about marriage and heartache. This one is no exception. When the emotional pain becomes too much for a widow to bear it starts to seep into her life. "The worst pain she's ever learned. No, not the worst: even this blinding curtain of agony pales next to that phone call." If that's not ominous I don't know what is.

Ceremonials:
Teenagers taking revenge after some boys. Teenage witches and an authentic Aquelarre!!!! A nice twist on forest witches.

Conversion:
Without giving too much away, this story is about the social construct of women (following DeBeauvoir's theory in The Second Sex) and the distortion pornography creates in the minds of men. How therapy can be weaponized to dehumanize others and transform them in the ways society wants us to be. This story is about conversion therapy, but it is also about other transformations and the discovery of self. The social critique was not lost on me for this one.

The Vault of the Sky, The Face of The Deep:
A great example for those who aren't sure how to tell a story in second person. This is a short story about blood libel, reminiscent of La Catedral del Mar by Idelfonso Falcones. As a jew, this one hit close to home. I have been fortunate enough not to suffer too much antisemitism throughout my lifetime albeit, I know my family and ancestors have which is why stories such as this one are important. Robert reflects the evil of those hysteric times right back to us.

[p · Rating 3 out of 5]

cool elements but a tedious and disappointing read for me

[Taylor Parks · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 rounded up? I think?

[Sophia Darter · Rating 2 out of 5]

when i want to read a horror book i expect ghosts and monsters and gore, not 2 brothers having sex. I DNF after that story