Book Review: "Effects Vary" by Michael Harris Cohen
Effects Vary Book Review
Written by Stuart D. Monroe
Published by Cemetery Gates Media
Written by Michael Harris Cohen
2022, 201 pages, Fiction
Published on September 26th, 2022
Review:
I’m biased in my opinion, admittedly, but I believe the short story is the perfect form for horror. There’s a sweet spot where suspending disbelief is just the first step to wrapping your mind around the succinct pocket dimension created by truly talented short story writers. Everyone has a handful of go to short story masters; mine are Stephen King (of course), H.P. Lovecraft (the O.G.), Ramsey Campbell (whose short fiction does not get enough love), F. Paul Wilson (“Soft” kills me every time), and Joe R. Lansdale, His Ownself.
I devour short fiction indiscriminately, however, and a new collection from a single author always piques my interest. When the glowing foreword (and a story collaboration) on that collection comes from one of my new faves, Mark Allan Gunnells (Before He Wakes), then said collection becomes appointment reading.
Even with that mindset, I was caught off guard by just how damn good he is. Seriously.
Michael Harris Cohen’s twenty-two story collection is full of stories that go in some wildly different directions- there are dives deep into the earth (“He Dies Where I Die”), one hell of a nasty mold problem (“Makes Three” with Mark Allan Gunnells), savage island children searching for their mother (“Another Mother”), and a circus freak with two faces and a deep need for singularity (“We is We”) just to name a few. What virtually all of the tales have in common is a deep wellspring of tragedy, broken people, and the intimate horror of the human psyche. I’m here to tell you that some of these stories hurt.
In “What Happens in the Dark Will Soon Happen in the Light”, a soldier and father comes home from the desert with something far worse than PTSD, something awakened from under the sands that’s changed who he is. “We is We” takes you in the mind of a two-faced circus freak who just wants to be normal and hits you with a painful truth in the potent finish’s final message. An aging TV actress is obsessing over her on-screen son from her glory days in “Erasing Tony”, and this story leaves you with one truly awful mental image as a parting gift. “Whittling” is easily one of the standouts in this collection; it does for self mutilation what King’s “Survivor Type” did for auto-cannibalism and does it with the same understanding of shock trauma!
“Better Than Healed” feels like a companion story to The Island of Dr. Moreau. “Pain Is Your Teacher” puts a smile on your face with the touching story of an abused woman serving her husband divorce papers and a particularly nasty poisoned Scotch whisky. “Graduating” proves that clones have feelings too and might be the most chilling of the bunch. And no short story collection is complete without a serial killer tale, and “A Bead to String” monologues some serious nastiness and deep philosophy. “No Bones Were Human” is pure imagery at its post apocalyptic holiday finest. “The Wishing Box” opens with the image of an abandoned freezer in the woods before the boys show up, and you know that can’t be good. Abandoned freezers never are.
Then there’s “Done to Scale”. Of all the stories in Effects Vary, this is the one that will haunt you and sadden you the most. It’s just the fantasies of a little girl playing with her fancy dollhouse, but as the scenarios unfold you realize that this is a little girl that’s in serious need of some professional help. The language is so firmly and deftly in that of a child that you hear this one like an audiobook. That also means you won’t be able to unhear it. You’ve been warned.
“Effects Vary” introduces a direly ill man who travels to a mysterious place he can’t even pronounce looking for the cure to his disease with hallucinogenic prose that made me feel crazier than I already am. “The Book of Skies” is the collection’s obligatory folk horror yarn; this one will ensure you never see clouds the same way again. “Another Mother” proves that children are savage little bastards in a ludicrously fun little quickie of a story. “Makes Three” (with Mark Allan Gunnells) plays like an untold tale from The Last of Us, and I am here for it. “Mimesis” is the brutally short piece of nastiness that every collection needs; it flows like a skilled poet’s angry outburst.
It’s about time for a good, old-fashioned cautionary tale, and “Everything is Forever” does just that with a gifted psychic who’s also a total charlatan. “Harvest” provides the weirding out that this mama’s boy needed (though my Mom isn’t dead and didn’t inhabit a skull in the back of the root cellar). Another highlight is “He Dies Where I Die”, the tale of a miner who’s determined to go deeper and deeper that’s so claustrophobic it should come with a trigger warning on the label. It would also have made one killer episode of the ‘80s classic TV show, Monsters.
In “I Pay You”, a druggie safecracker named Reed is taking one last job before getting out. Instead, he gets ahold of some stuff that will have him tripping his way to an end point that only those who have done a fair amount of psychedelics will understand…maybe. “The Ex-Court Painter, Goya, and the Princess” is chock full of fiercely original concepts in a story where necrophilia meets pedophilia. Last but not least is “The Price of Gold”, a story so sad and sweet that it caught me unprepared.
Effects Vary is one hell of a potent and diverse piece of storytelling magic, a collection that will go down as an example of how to structure, theme, and present a body of work. Short stories are produced by a particular kind of alchemy, and Michael Harris Cohen shows that he is a highly skilled (and slightly vicious) practitioner of the magical arts.
Grade:
4.0 out of 5.0 stars
