Guises

by Charlee Jacob

GUISES is a reprint of a classic Charlee Jacob collection featuring 21 short stories, and novelettes. Charlee is one of the most respected authors in modern literary horror. This collection showcases her unique talents as one of the premier storytellers of the genre.GUISES is a masterful example of Jacob’s beautifully brutal and grotesque style of dark fiction. Within GUISES, Jacob explores endless variations of the masks — literal and figurative — that hide human frailties and reveal the true nature of the wearer. From the works of art in the titular story to the seemingly surface attraction of the weary hero of “The Piper,” the nature of the camouflage ranges from the breathtakingly beautiful to heart-stopping horror. And sometimes, the extremes are indistinguishable from each other. Such is the makeup of appearances.In GUISES, all parties are in disguise; it is recognizing that truth that is essential to drawing every nuance from the stories.Make no mistake; seen from the outside, there is little within these dark stories and poems that could be genuinely classified as love. Within Jacob’s lush prose there is an excess of emotion, but few would put it down to such tender feelings. In GUISES, as in virtually all of her work, Jacob returns again and again to the explicit dissection of all things sexual. She handles it deftly, disturbingly, never more than a twist of phrase from another excursion into her peculiar take on sex at its most repulsive.

Genres: Horror, Collections

344 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Charlee Jacob has been a digger for dinosaur bones, a seller of designer rags, and a cook - to mention only a few things. With more than 950 publishing credits, Charlee has been writing dark poetry and prose for more than 25 years. Some of her recent publishing events include the novel STILL (Necro), the poetry collection HERESY (Necro), and the novel DARK MOODS. She is a three-time Bram Stoker Award winner, two of those awards for her novel DREAD IN THE BEAST and the poetry collection SINEATER; the third award for collaborative poetry collection, VECTORS, with Marge Simon. Permanently disabled, she has begun to paint as one of her forms of phsycial therapy. She lives in Irving, Texas with her husband Jim and a plethora of felines.

Courtesy: http://www.williamcookwriter.com

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the Necro paperback of this collection. Another awesome collection of stories. Some are pretty long. All very original and inventive.

[BeerDiablo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Early works before Charlee's prose became cutting but this is still above an average horror/dark fantasy writer's early works. Bonus in that there's lot's of poetry in the back that holds true to her poetry writing today.

Overall, not as bizarre/macabre as she is currently but in view of her later work, think of this book as a rose in half-bloom.

It's out of print so I'd say this is for completists only and if you can get it for under $15[unless it's hardback]. I found mine used at Half-Price Books and get my books personalized by Charlee at "cons" locally in Dallas, so you see...I couldn't resist.