Sightseeing in Hell: Stories

by Cameron Macauley

A doctor and his wife on safari in Africa lose their car keys to a hungry elephant. A prison inmate tries to discover where his dead cellmate has hidden a drug stash. A young aid worker spends a terrifying first night in a refugee camp in Thailand. In these eighteen stories, people struggle to overcome unforeseen challenges.

166 pages, Paperback

Published March 15, 2017

About the author

Cameron Macauley has published short fiction in Prism International, The North American Review, The Sonora Review and Quick Fiction. After getting degrees in anthropology, psychology, and medical science, Cameron Macauley spent thirty years working in disaster relief and international health. During his career he has worked in a refugee camp in Thailand, a besieged city in Angola, a Yanomami Indian village in Brazil, and a mission hospital in Sumatra.

He teaches at James Madison University.

He has co-authored two novels with his father Robie Macauley: CITADEL OF ICE (2014), and THE ESCAPE OF ALFRED DREYFUS (2016), both from unpublished manuscripts found after Robie's death in 1995.

His short story collection is SIGHTSEEING IN HELL (2017).

Cameron is also the author of a supernatural adventure series, THE GOLDEN CHILD TRILOGY: THE TALISMAN CHILD (2014) and THE FOREST OF REGRETS (2015), and THE WARRIOR DEAD (2016). The complete trilogy is available in a single volume, UNBORN EVIL (2016).

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories, some of were published over 30 years ago. They cover adventures that the author had during his amazing career as a surgical assistant in a mission hospital, an aid worker, and a prison medic, plus a number of short-shorts about other people. Many but not all the stories have a macabre supernatural component, like the one about an African villager who goes to sleep in his own bed and wakes up every morning with the pigs. Or the Zulu obelisk that confers magical virility. Or the title story, in which a wealthy patron books a sightseeing tour through the netherworld. But most of these are just about normal people in very abnormal situations, often with an element of horror, as in the story of a young man hospitalized after a motorcycle accident, which the surgeon believes was caused by a haunted goat. One of the best describes the predicament of an American couple who are on safari in the African bush when an elephant eats their car keys. Alone in the wilderness, they find themselves unearthing their unresolved grief over the death of their son. There is humor here too--the incompetent translator whose interpretations are hilariously wrong and the incarcerated dwarf who is trying to find the cocaine his cellmate hid before he died. All of the stories are written in refreshingly simple prose that depicts a stark and perverse world in which protagonists are confronted with bad luck, predators and idiots.

The title is altogether appropriate: after reading these stories, I felt as if I was emerging from a grand tour of a land of nightmares. Unforgettable and thoroughly enjoyable.