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KISSING CARRION
File's stygian world is a gritty, violent, bloody place full of monsters and lacking gods.
Without divinity there's no chance for redemption, no chance for escape, no heroics: no one comes
out alive (or at least unscarred.) These stories of stories of sex, obsession, transformation,
loneliness, and isolation are often explicit, there's no raw exploitation or sheer sensationalism.
Despite the extremity of the stories, it's usually the deep humanity (or inhumanity or
"un"humanity) of the characters that makes the deepest impression. Similarly, when Files dips into
the supernatural she does so as a support to story rather than the reason for it existence.
At her best, ("Bear-Shirt," "Keepsake," "Mouthful of Pins," "Skin City," "Skeleton Bitch") she
writes with precision, placing each word as carefully as a syllable in a haiku. Her prose often
verges on the poetic whether describing the mundane ("The bright eye of her cigarette blinks, as
ash dots the rug beneath her feet.") or the extraordinary ("The nude moon of her left eye bulges
and slits, blankly, as its lid smears itself shut.")
Overall Files relies a little too often on first person and occasionally stoops to cute tricks
("The Diarist," "Folly," "Job 37") but still manages to pull her story off well. My only
disappointment was with the eponymous "Kissing Carrion," which would have been improved with more
of her usual care and her knack for restraint.
Files' wounds tend to fester rather than heal cleanly, so her stories will not be to everyone's
taste. Nor will her characters -- they are drawn from the dispossessed rather than likeable
gee-whiz innocents. Nobody in a Gemma Files stories puts a hand on a doorknob and open the door
they shouldn't -- these folks are already in the other side. And that's to my taste. -- Paula Guran
(DarkEcho 06.10.03)
Copyright © 2003 Paula Guran. All Rights Reserved. |
Gemma
Files' first collection includes 16 previously published short stories written from 1994 through
2002 and one original. Chances are you've not read most of them unless you read a lot of small
press as she's just now beginning to show up in better-known anthologies like DARK TERRORS 6 and
THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF VAMPIRE FICTION BY WOMEN. It's difficult to call her an up-and-comer or a "name
to watch" as she's been writing for more than a decade, won an IHG award, caught the notice of
quite a few, and done some professional screenwriting. Nevertheless, she may be new to you and I'm
pleased to introduce her.