Things Left Behind

by Brian Keene, Mary SanGiovanni

In their first book-length collaboration, Grandmaster Award winner Brian Keene and Bram Stoker Award nominee Mary SanGiovanni take readers on a road trip across horror fiction’s vast landscape, incorporating the quiet, the cosmic, the supernatural, the surreal, and the splatter. From a basement in Baltimore where a writer uncovers a gruesome secret that threatens to rip his world apart, to the golden shores of San Francisco where a young widow discovers she still has more to lose, stretches a trail of THINGS LEFT BEHIND.

Genres: Horror

367 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2022

About the author

BRIAN KEENE writes novels, comic books, short fiction, and occasional journalism for money. He is the author of over forty books, mostly in the horror, crime, and dark fantasy genres. His 2003 novel, The Rising, is often credited (along with Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead comic and Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later film) with inspiring pop culture’s current interest in zombies. Keene’s novels have been translated into German, Spanish, Polish, Italian, French, Taiwanese, and many more. In addition to his own original work, Keene has written for media properties such as Doctor Who, Hellboy, Masters of the Universe, and Superman.

Several of Keene’s novels have been developed for film, including Ghoul, The Ties That Bind, and Fast Zombies Suck. Several more are in-development or under option. Keene also serves as Executive Producer for the independent film studio Drunken Tentacle Productions.

Keene also oversees Maelstrom, his own small press publishing imprint specializing in collectible limited editions, via Thunderstorm Books.

Keene’s work has been praised in such diverse places as The New York Times, The History Channel, The Howard Stern Show, CNN.com, Publisher’s Weekly, Media Bistro, Fangoria Magazine, and Rue Morgue Magazine. He has won numerous awards and honors, including the World Horror 2014 Grand Master Award, two Bram Stoker Awards, and a recognition from Whiteman A.F.B. (home of the B-2 Stealth Bomber) for his outreach to U.S. troops serving both overseas and abroad. A prolific public speaker, Keene has delivered talks at conventions, college campuses, theaters, and inside Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, VA.

The father of two sons, Keene lives in rural Pennsylvania.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an unusual collection, with lead-off and concluding stories written as collaborations and the intervening twenty-six alternating between Keene and SanGiovanni. The title is the same as Gary A. Braunbeck's first collection, which will surely lead to some bibliographical confusion in years to come. I enjoyed both of the collaborations, The Last Things to Go which sets the mood very nicely, and the titular moody capstone piece which is an excellent companion piece to the nice Lynne Hanson cover. The majority of the stories were published on the authors' respective Patreon pages over the last few years and see physical print here for the first time. My favorites from SanGiovanni were All of Us Are Dead or Dying (a zombie story), The Memories of Trees, The Fireplace (a holiday tale), and especially Hannah, even though her name mysteriously changes to Mandy once on page 269. My favorites of the Keene stories were Against This Squelching Darkness (cool title!), Past the End of the Boardwalk, Ouit Where the Water Meets the Sky (another cool title!), and The Hatching (short title, sounds like a Bentley Little novel, right?). My favorite piece in the book is The Goat by Keene, a non-fiction autobiographical piece about his experience at a fan-run convention. It was crazy sad and crazy funny all at the same time. As someone who worked on such conventions for a quarter century or so, I could see how the best of intentions lead to things all going wrong. I was going to rate the book a four, but then I re-read The Goat and it made me laugh just as much again, so I went with all the stars.

[Brian Bowyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Killer Collection!

I've been a fan of both Keene and SanGiovanni for a long time, so it's great to have a collaborative collection of their fiction. I enjoyed all these stories, but my favorites were "Things Remembered," "The Giant's Table," and "The Last Things To Go." Do yourself a favor and check out THINGS LEFT BEHIND! I knew it was gonna be awesome, but it's even better than I thought it was going to be.

[Thomas Hobbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Multiple short stories by both Brian Keene and Mary Sangiovanni. A few described in the back are a little personal. Death can be harder to deal with to some than others. Luckily I have only lost 1 close family member and it was very hard on me. But a story at the beginning got to me where all the lost ones stuff began disappearing, like they were being erased. And I feel that is how life is.

[Alex McConnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a longtime Keene fan, I was hesitant to dive into this collection for one reason. That reason being that half the tales were written by Mary SanGiovanni, whose work I had only previous read once and in honesty didn’t care for.
I am happy to report that while I do feel this collection to be more representative of Mary and her work, the stories included are all worth reading. There genuinely isn’t a bad story in the collection which says something being that there’s around 30 of them.
Brian and Mary are actually partners in life and to see them collaborate for the first time was very interesting. The fact of the matter is (and Brian agrees in the Story Notes section) Mary is a more literary and polished author than Brian is. You can see it here. That’s not actually a shot at Brian, his work has always been straightforward and emotionally powerful without being wordy. Mary makes him better in the two collaborative tales in the story, both of which are very good. They made each other better in both and you could tell.
I was slightly miffed that most of Brian’s stories didn’t involve his overall mythos but happily surprised to learn that Mary had a mythos of her own concerning dimensional realities.
Standout stories from Brian- Things Remembered-A cathartic exercise using his real life friends as sadistic murderers, Killer is a Conscience-Tony and Vince are back! And Against This Squelching Darkness-An end of the world tale about loneliness, beautifully written.
Mary-The Hours I Keep-A beautiful piece about a mother’s fierce protectiveness, We Sing In Darkness-A future where sound has opened doorways to dangerous dimensions and Sila-A little girls imaginary friend isn’t so imaginary or friendly.
The Goat was a recounting of a terrible convention experience they both attended and it was harrowingly hilarious.
Things Left Behind was an excellent collection showing the versatility and talent of two of horror’s best writers.

[Robert Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories. Two are cowritten by both authors, and the remainder alternate between works by Keene and Sangiovanni. Though they’ve been a couple for more than a decade, this marks their first book-length collaboration, and it’s a triumph. Despite their very different literary voices and styles, these two are among the masters of the genre. Both authors have had works appear separate on my best of the year lists in the past, so it’s probably little surprise that their combined talents prove a force to be reckoned with.

Because this is a collection of short stories, there are of course some standout works of genius as well as a few that didn’t impress quite as much. But what’s particularly remarkable about this collection is that there are surprisingly few in that latter category, and NONE that seemed like mere filler without any merit at all. I can’t remember the last time I read a collection whose quality ranged not from the bad to the good, nor even from the mediocre to the great, but from the quite good to the genius.

If you can find a copy, snatch it up. This was easily one of the best books I read in 2022.

[Shelby · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really terrific read. I hadn’t read anything by Mary Sangiovanni before and will definitely be checking out her solo works.

I liked the exploration they clearly had in crafting each story and the themes that linked them all together. Overall, I think Keene and Sangiovanni gave us strong stories.

There were some slip ups that an editor should have caught. For example, in Mary’s story “Hannah” the titular character is referred to as Mandy. May be in an earlier iteration Hannah was Mandy, but given the single slip up I’m betting it was just missed in the editing. A silly little thing but the sort of miss that typically annoys me. That being said, the strength of the stories themselves redeems the editorial mistakes.

Definitely would recommend and read again.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m growing into a bigger and bigger Brian Keene fan with every one of his works that I have the pleasure to read. I was also blown away by the writing prowess of his partner, Mary SanGiovanni!

This collection brings the horror full tilt but I was surprised at how touching some of the stories are. You also get a large variety of stories ranging all over the horror spectrum.

I can’t recommend this one enough for anyone looking for a collection of short stories for spooky season that also pack an emotional punch on top of making you check twice to see what that noise was that you heard in the dark.

[Rachel Antoon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome Read....

I have been a huge fan of Keene for years and had discovered SanGiovanni in the last few years ,adding her to my list of favourite authors. This collaboration was a wonderful read. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is a fan of both, either, or just a plain old fan of this genre of book. My favorite story was " The Memories of Trees". Thanks to both of these awesome writers for sharing their amazing imagination with those of us who don't have that creative spark but enjoy jumping into the worlds created for us by those who do.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short story collections are, to me, a palate cleanser. You read one or two stories, then go back to novels. Hence the 3 months it took to finish this. Solid entries from Keene and Sangiovanni. The story about the convention gone awry cracks me up as hard as it did when Keene told it on The Horror Show years ago. Really recommended if you're a fan of either author. Both have very different voices, and both are great in their own way.

[Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful! This was probably my favorite collection of short stories I have ever read. Experienced a lot of different emotions reading it and just really enjoyed the stories. The story notes about each story was great to read, I really enjoy reading more about how a story came to be or fun facts about it. I really hope Brian and Mary team up again for another collection like this one.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Solid collection, and much to my surprise, and probably the author's, there isn't a particularly jarring gap between their stories in flow. There are differences in style, but nothing that makes the wheels fall off, if anything they compliment.

[Gary Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collection of short stories by Brian Keene and Mary Sangiovani. I had never heard of her before, but I will be looking for some of her writing soon. Almost all of the stories in this collection were very good to great, some I would like to see expanded on someday.

[Craig Brownlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

While reading Zephyr Hollow (story #19), I realized why this collection made me feel so good, considering the emotions and the horrors so powerfully rendered. I was back on the youthful roof, with a paperback and a plastic cup of something, reveling in a tattered collections of stories from Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore. These stories are fresh as the pain the world has invented in the last half century, but the anger and empathy, the intelligence and anticipation for the next page, brought a little magic back. Maybe the roof beckons...

[Chandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great mix of a variety of horrors!