Kissing Carrion

by Gemma Files, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Introduction), Michael Rowe (Afterword)

The first horror story collection from the author of Experimental Film, “one of the most powerful and unique voices in weird fiction today” (Paul Tremblay, award-winning author of A Head Full of Ghosts).

These seventeen tales take readers into the uniquely twisted mind of “one of Canada’s most promising new horror writers” (Publishers Weekly). From a live necrophilia show starring reanimated corpses to a confrontation between a security guard and inhuman squatters, from who can be found at an all-night laundromat to what lies in wait at the bottom of the sea, from undead addictions to all-consuming obsessions, Kissing Carrion is “a journey through some of the most beautifully rendered visions of darkness and death to be published this past year. . . . Fans of Poppy Z. Brite, Charlee Jacob, and Clive Barker should enjoy this collection immensely” (SF Reader).

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Anthologies, Collections, Weird Fiction

10 pages, Audible Audio

First published July 1, 2003

About the author

Previously best-known as a film critic for Toronto's eye Weekly, teacher and screenwriter, Gemma Files first broke onto the international horror scene when her story "The Emperor's Old Bones" won the 1999 International Horror Guild award for Best Short Fiction. She is the author of two collections of short work (Kissing Carrion and The Worm in Every Heart) and two chapbooks of poetry (Bent Under Night and Dust Radio). Her Hexslinger Series trilogy is now complete: A Book of Tongues, A Rope of Thorns and A Tree of Bones, all available from ChiZine Publications.

Reviews

[Tom A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plague Review 21: Kissing Carrion by Gemma Files

The 1990s. The decade the horror boom died. The Splatterpunks have disbanded, the skeleton covers have disappeared, and King and Co. are writing (ahem) "thrillers" to satiate the horror-weary masses. Enter the Dell Abyss authors, a group of word slingers that bravely tried to introduce a new breed of edgy and nihilistic horror to the disillusioned masses. Comprised of authors like Brian Hodge and Kathe Koja, the Dell Abyss authors tried to capture the zeitgeist of the 90s in all its troubling glory while injecting a new twist on old horror tropes. This new movement, however, would not see the end of the decade. (The last book in the line was in 1998)

Out of all of this mess, Gemma Files burst into the world of horror. *

All of Files' work in this decade is short stories and novellas. (Her first novel came out in 2010). Kissing Carrion (published originally in 2003) is her first short story collection.

My enjoyment of short stories is dependent (most of the time) on the subject matter of the story. I admit that I am not fond of overly-stylized writing; just enough descriptions, please! But in my endless quest for quality horror stories, I have to seek out writers whose works I would not have read four years ago. As stated in my review of Koja's collection Velocities, I ask if the subject matter is interesting enough to read through the overly-intricate prose. I am happy to report that most of Files' stories have scintillating themes that make it worth reading through the aforementioned complicated prose.

THE STORIES

Perhaps the most common theme found in Files' stories is erotic love and the taboo-breaking ways of expressing it. Stories like "Kissing Carrion" and "Skeleton Bitch" deal with necrophilia, with the latter story having the main character fully embrace undead love even after the revelation of his partner's un-life. "Rose-Sick" is an unusual and unexpected take on the practice of Erotic Asphyxiation; who knew you could attach interesting folklore to it? "Bear-Shirt" deals with the complicated gay relationship between a university professor and a Viking-magic obsessed neo-Nazi. The lore in the story is about berserker magic and the power of wearing animal skins/suits. (This is the perfect companion piece to Laird Barron's "The Carrion Gods in Their Heavens" and a lesser degree, Graham Masterton's "Rug"). "Torch Song" deals with an Aphrodite Cult supposedly supplying the philosophy behind a slew of murders. The idea behind the slayings is creepy, and the addition of scenes of brutal abuse makes it equally disturbing and unforgettable. Finally, "The Diarist" deals with the revenge of a woman on a man who cheated on her. Throughout the story, Files enumerates explicit instructions on how to make curses. I longed for interesting subject matter, and I got something more dangerous and exciting.

Then there are the stories dealing with vampires, shapeshifters/feral creatures. "Keepsake" deals with the bleak day-to-day (or is it night-to-night) existence of a former junkie woman and her increasingly-uncontrollable vampire brother. The story is appropriately gory and sexual, and it contains a disgusting scene for you to discover. (Files reveals that this scene prevented the sale of the story for the Hunger TV series). "Hidebound" details the deteriorating relationship of a female security guard with her fiancé. Files adds the element of feral homeless people running around her assigned post, a creaky construction site. Files makes the fateful encounter just another step in the main character's mental deterioration. "Skin City" has the main character search for his childhood friend who has become something otherworldly thanks to a magic/summoning trick using cards (?). The mythology is unspecified (Native American?) but chilling nonetheless. "Seen" is in the form of a shooting script, and it deals with a detective named Ray Wray (hahaha) dealing with the latest handiwork of a killer dubbed as 'The Mad Knitter"; this is due to the suspected murder weapon being a long needle. Then Ray sees a mysterious woman who has a habit of disappearing out of thin air. Before he could make sense of all of it, ah, read it for yourself.

THE MASTERPIECES

Files has three (3) masterpieces in the collection

"Folly" is Files' take on the Haunted House genre. Some organizers are conducting a guided tour of the Peazant house's premises. The house is famous not only for its grisly history but also because its deceased owner re-built the house for some strange purpose. Case in point, the main attraction inside is "Peazant's Folly," a structure designed by the house's eccentric owner to mimic the temples of the Oracles of Delphi. Files builds on the ancient mythology behind the folly by narrating the various unfortunate encounters of both skeptics and believers with the house. (inspired by Matheson's Hell House) The ending is an unexpected shocker, too.

"Mouthful of Pins" is concerned with childhood imagination, and how pain and suffering aren't always eroded and erased by thinking about some magical fantasy world. Stories about the dangers of imagination are a dime a dozen, but Files take on the subject is scarier and more nihilistic than any of the other similar stories. The thing that is more remarkable than the story is that this is Files' first (!) fiction sale. Not bad at all.

"Job 37" is in the form of an interview with a crime scene cleaner conducted by the Freihoeven ParaPsych Department concerning his experiences with "Psychic Fragments" He casually describes his methods and his various experiences (very gruesome). Then he recounts that particular creepy and eerie experience, one that confounds him to this day. Files engrosses with the realistic descriptions of the cleaner's job before plunging into the world of the unknown via found footage horror. (This short story predates the Blair Witch Movie). Overall, an unforgettable and gripping tale.

SOME DISAPPOINTMENTS

Some stories didn't work for me. "Blood Makes Noise" is a tale of treacherous government operatives, secret missions, and deadly organisms from the bottom of the ocean; think "The Hunt for Red October" meets Michael Shea's "The Autopsy". This tale, I feel, should have been written in a more straightforward manner instead of its current fragmented form. I felt that its power was diminished by the writing style; if "Job 37" can be unpretentious and scary at the same time, why can't this one? "No Darkness but Ours" feels underdeveloped, and despite a fearsome antagonist, there is little to nothing about her or why she is doing the things she does. Ambiguity for the sake of it puts me off. (I'm saying this as someone who loves unanswered endings). The last tale about vampires is something I did not care for despite some erotic scenes and gory violence; it feels like a frontrunner for "True Blood" and its countless brethren out in the market today. Sure, this novella existed before those books and shows, but my tastes never swayed in that direction anyway.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Gemma Files' first collection is a great combination of a unique writing style with the bizarre and scintillating subject matter expected from a horror veteran. Some of the tales are absolute masterpieces that manage to erase the painful experience in reading the bad ones.

*Earliest story is 1994, per the Copyright page.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing, visually stunning and horrifyingly perverse. Pretty much perfect.

[Kate O'Hanlon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another interesting mix of stories that did nothing for me and stories I absolutely adored.
Extra star for the title story which is the first thing in ages to have genuinely disturbed me to the point that I was reading it through fingers splayed over my face in horror.

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars--I really liked it. The title of this collection is literal--there's a lot of necrophilia, monsters (and human monsters), debauchery, transgressions, etc.. But the stories sing despite (because of?) their depravity.

My favorites of the collection:
Kissing Carrion: The revenge of an abused corpse.
Blood Makes Noise: A Lovecraftian undersea nightmare.
Folly: A good fragment, but I want more. About a house built to be an oracle.
Job 37: Another one I'd like more of. A housecleaner falls through a time warp.
Bear-Shirt: An uncomfortable mix of white supremacy and shape changing.
Torch Song: Love is a curse.
The Diarist: Breakups are a curse!

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gemma Files is one of my favorite and top authors in 'the new weird' or whatever its called. This was her first collection from back in the day and as such it contains a someone uneven but still overall very strong selection of stories. By far my favorite was 'Bear Shirt' though 'Hidebound' was a very close second.

[Isidore · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not a fan of "erotic horror", but Files' writing is so unfailingly beautiful that I was swept along by her stories in spite of myself. "Job 37", a mysterious Fortean tale, was my favourite.

[clumsyplankton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A diverse mix of stories. Some were a bit hit and miss for me but the vast majority were a good read

[Jeffrey Powanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkable collection of 17 stories from Gemma Files, a fiercely talented Canadian writer of horror. This collection is from 2003, but the stories are mostly from the Nineties. The stories often grapple with extreme subjects (necrophilia, erotic asphyxiation, cults, and vampirism, for instance), but Files intuitively knows how far she can go without being offensive or banal. In one story, "Bear Shirt," Files actually takes on the point of view of a gay man in a complicated relationship. That takes fearlessness.

In an afterward, Files explains why she respects horror more than other forms of literature:

Through horror, we force ourselves to explore the things too much fantasy tries its best to avoid, to escape, to deny: The skull beneath the skin, the inescapable and unsettling knowledge that while some of us may indeed die sooner and in more inventive or spectacular ways, all of us will—eventually—travel the exact same ghost-road on our way to whatever lies beyond the undeniable fact of physical dissolution.

Seed becomes matter, matter becomes decay, energy moves unquantifiably forward; entropy in action, or maybe something more. But all we have to go on, or can create in the interim, is a shadow-puppet theater version of our own fears, our own desires...our own slim, yet unextinguishable, hopes in the face of apparent hopelessness.

Files is not afraid to write about things that make readers uncomfortable: erotic love, sexual perversion, fetishism, sexual abuse, and death. This is the squishy area of fiction, and I'm thrilled to have Files as my tour guide.

[Raymond · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another “I tried” book.

It was written well. But it was vulgar and sexual.

I believe it has something like 17 short stories contained within the book.

The first one was sexually vulgar.

I told myself, “I hope the others were not the same way”. But sure enough, two and three were also graphically vulgar.

I had to stop right there, and returned the book.

It was not the language. It was not the horror. It was that all the stories I read were steeped in sexual and lustful scenes.

Imagine you’re a female, and your brother turns into a vampire. And one day while you are sleeping naked with him, you find him down in your privates, while you are menstruating, satiating himself.

That goes beyond horror. It is perverted.

It definitely tells me something about this author, and what she is like in her day to day life. And I don’t want anything to do with that.

Negative stars if it is possible. This book should not be categorized as horror. More like twisted sexual perversion.

Nuff said.

[Jeff Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've noted before that I'm relatively new to horror at this point, and I've been delving into a lot of short stories as of late. While I didn't love Experimental Film, I was interested in the short stories of Gemma Files anyway, and this collection came highly regarded.

Like any collection, there are hits and misses, but there are a lot of solid, creepy stories here. The highlights of the title story, of the story with literal meat puppets, they don't take away from anything else, and even the stories that don't quite work still succeed in the efforts. My big complaint is less structural and more personal - one thing I have not been able to really do well with on the horror side of things is body horror, and Files deals heavily in this area. If that squicks you out a lot, this might not be the collection for you.

For everyone else, though? Check it out. The stories are quick and well-crafted, and there are some real gems here. Worth a read.

[Pam Winkler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one is all by Gemma Files. It was a good collection, and a lot of fun to read.
Kissing Carrion was interesting.
Keepsake was very interesting, and not at all what I expected. I liked it.
Rose-Sick was ok, it didn't do a lot for me.
Blood Makes Noise was interesting and very poetic. After reading this I read a collection of Thomas Ligotti stories for the first time, and this feels very much like that.
Skeleton Bitch was interesting, I kind of liked it.
Folly was very good.
Mouthful of Briars was also very good.
Pretend That We're Dead was very interesting and good.
No Darkness but Ours was ok? It didn't do much for m.
Job 37 was very good.
Bear-Shirt was interesting and kind of uncomfortable.
Hidebound was very good.
Skin City was good.
Seen was ok? It would be better as an actual short film.
Torch Song was like gasoline on a fire, just fantastic.
The Diarist was interesting.
Dead Bodies Possessed by Furious Motion was very interesting. I liked it.

[Sistermagpie · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a collection of short stories, some drew me in more than others, of course, but they all share the same brutally descriptive style. That's sometimes hard for me--at one point reading this I thought it was like foods with a strong taste. Some people seek them out and don't know why anyone would eat anything bland. Some of us go straight to crying with a runny nose after one bite. It's embarassing, but it also means you probably enjoy bland foods more than some.

None of which is a criticism, just saying that if you're sensitive to descriptions, Gemma Files' are going to going to take you to some dark, gritty, sometimes gross places. Very different from the Tanith Lee I was recently reading, but equally strong.

[Christina · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got through the first 5 stories and I couldn't take it anymore. The descriptions of everything fill up so much of the stories that there is barely anything of a plot. These weren't even scary, just gross. It's like the author ran each story through AI and said "Add as much filler content as you can to make it longer' to the point that the barely-there plot is even hard to follow. Not going to bother with even trying to power my way through.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of 17 stories by Gemma Files blew me away. It's not for the faint of heart though. It is an example of the best of extreme horror I have ever read. Her ability to touch on characters of various genders being caught up in often violent and catastrophic situations are completely and totally believable. I had intended to list my favorites from this collection but to be honest they were all my favorites.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of my Halloween reads. Trigger warning: you’ll need a strong stomach for some of these stories. Even so, I can confidently say that there’s a whole lot more going on here than gross out for gross out sake. Many of the stories carry a deep and lyrical exploration of staring into the abyss (and yes, it often stares back).

[Susan Howson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think if I’d read one of the better ones alone, I’d be like “oh wow,” but a whole book was too much. I feel like I need a shower and I definitely would love to stop having bad dreams. Not like cool spooky dreams. Bad ones.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gemma Files is fast becoming one of my favorite short story authors. This anthology is sexy, gross, scary, and definitely made me squirm a few times. These stories get under the reader’s skin in all the right ways and I want more!

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly voice-driven and language-based, as opposed to scene-based stories. Enough great stories to carry some of the weaker ones.

[Adarah]

Unfinished. First short story reeeeeally got to me :p Will come back to eventually.

[SmokingMirror · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ones I liked, I really liked, e.g. (needless to say) "Bear Shirt." "Folly is another.

[Russell Smeaton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just couldn't get into this collection despite a few attempts. The first story was absolutely stunning, but alas the rest of the stories failed to live up to that initial promise.

[Adrian Bloxham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horrible,nasty, visceral and brilliant

[Mere Rain]

Amazing collection of short stories BUT please note this horror turned up to 11, not monsterp^rn, no one is having fun here.

[Carman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perverse!

[Ski L. Laughing-Bear Gutowsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had read some of Gemma Files short stories here and there but primarily in Ellen Datlow’s “Best Horror of the Year” anthologies along with other Datlow anthologies moving me to look up Gemma Files work. I was amazed at the amount of highly regarded, award winning, coveted books she had published with remarkable success. So, I ordered the first one that popped up, “Kissing Carrion” on Audible and Kindle for “Whisper-Sync”. I am not disappointed, in fact, I have read this title at least 7 or 8 times enjoying it more with each listen or read. The narrators for the audiobook enthusiasts, are A List award winning most talented voices in the medium.

Audiobooks has become a popular choice with readers becoming more and more demanded, to secure an epic narrator, they have to be booked far in advance and will cost some major bucks. So, with the too many mediocre narrators now reading some very important stories and novels, it’s a definite treat to listen to a anthology and have so many different voices, outstanding readers, delivering these good to epic short horror stories that Gemma Files has assembled. (Narrator’s: Neil Hellegers, Xe Sands, Natasha Soudek, Chelsea Stephens, Paul Woodson, Andrew Eiden, Meghan Kelly; (Xe Sands and Natasha Soudek being two of my most favorite- I could probably enjoy them reading a list ingredients or the phone book.)

I now own and have read her entire library, not one disappointed. It is so awesome to discover a fresh writer even if they have been well known authors that have been around for decades, or even long passed away; these pens are NEW TO ME! That is very exciting and gives me hope that I will yet again find another that will be as satisfying; just exciting to read.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have incredibly mixed feelings about this one. Gemma Files' first short story collection has some good ideas, interesting characters, and great writing, but most of the stories were simply missing that special spark, that little oomph that would help it leave an impact. It didn't help that a lot of the stories felt like sketches rather than fully fleshed out stories, and some were incredibly difficult to grasp. I can forgive a lot of this, especially since this is her early work, and there are some incredible stories in here, my favorite still being "Bear-Shirt," a twisted gay love story if there ever was one, but surprisingly the other major story that stuck out in my mind was another one with gay themes, "Torch Song," about the dark, twisted permutations of Aphrodite's love. Other stories such as "Kissing Carrion", "Skeleton Bitch", "Keepsake", and "Pretend That We're Dead" are well-written, but feel far too beholden to the Brite-Koja school of dispossessed, artsy, goth protagonists to the point that it feels like posturing. That ended up being a major problem for me with the entire collection, the whole thing felt entirely too much like a young person trying desperately too hard to write in the milieu of dispossessed kids and young adults that other writers had covered in a much more honest and realistic way. It's not a bad collection, Gemma has always been a strong prose stylist and that's certainly on display here, I think it just suffers from being early work. Disappointing.

[Heidi Fogelberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Files' first story collection contains the early seeds of weird Toronto, along with a whole slew of other apocalyptically grotesque concepts. It's very sexual, very gory, fairly extreme. Some of the stories (notably Job 37) are pretty damn good. Others are less even. But her skill at writing is consistent, and she does tend to rise above the more flagrantly offensive notes of her narratives with something a bit deeper. There's an early appearance of my favorite peripheral character in weird Toronto, so extra credit there. And also an interesting afterword by the author, discussing the things authors are always asked to discuss. I think they probably all hate those questions.

[Kyle Muntz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read a decent chunk of stories from this collection. I liked how brutal, strange, and dark they were, but I wasn't so into a lot of the basic storytelling elements. Not bad, but like most of the horror short story writers I've read recently, particularly very successful ones like Thomas Ligotti and John Langan, I kept getting the sense these just weren't for me. I'll still probably check out her Hexslinger series though, since I love the idea of a western with these strange, surreal elements.

[Hilde · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5. Too much gory sex for my liking.