Totally Biased Review #3: As Summer's Mask Slips and Other Disruptions

The deep, dark woods have always been a source of fear, a place where the all the wonder and terror of nature lurks. In Gordon B. White’s debut collection, As Summer’s Mask Slips and Other Disruptions, characters who go out into the woods (or some other isolated place in the natural world, such as a field or lake) experience how strange and, often, dangerous nature can be. Not all of the stories occur in the wilderness--”The Lure of the Lollipop Tree,” “Open Fight Night at the Dirtbag Casino,” “Mise En Abyme,” and “The Meatbag Variations” are all urban horrors. “The Rising Son,” “Mise En Abyme,” and “Eight Affirmations for the Revolting Body, Confiscated from the Prisoners of Bunk 17” take place in post-apocalyptic, or at least dystopian, settings. But the major impression I had after reading this collection was of deep shadows between looming trees.

The collection is dedicated to Gordon’s father, which is very fitting as another major thread running through these stories is that of fatherhood, and particularly the relationship between father and child. In “The Lure of the Lollipop Tree,” the protagonist Jim is consumed with the idea of becoming a father. In “The Rising Son,” a father pins all his hopes on his newborn son. “The Buchanan Boys Ride Again” finds a father and son, their relationship strained after the father’s divorce, forced to fend off a siege by deadly monsters. In “As Summer’s Mask Slips,” Sarah returns to the isolated home of her recently deceased father, where she reminisces on all he taught her about the surrounding woods. “Birds of Passage,” which may be my favorite story in the collection, is narrated by a man thinking about that time when he was ten years old and his father took him canoeing down a river. All of the stories just listed explore fatherhood from different angles, though the fathers in “Buchanan Boys,” “Summer’s Mask” and “Birds of Passage” seem very closely related—all three are divorced, live in a rural area or have a close relationship with nature, and bring their children out into the wilderness.

White’s prose is elegant and evocative—in other words, literary (“in the most complimentary sense of the word” as John Foster says in his introduction). As a reader, prose style is a crucial component in my enjoyment of fiction, and the language in these fifteen stories is strong enough to even carry me through the two that I didn’t connect with. Through the magic of ink on paper he transports the reader to varied locations, from deep woodlands to city streets to and subterranean houses, and conjures real emotional attachment.

Thinking back over this collection, there are several stories that really struck me. “Hair Shirt Drag” for kicking off the collection with a middle finger raised to ‘normal’ society. “We Eat Dirt and Sleep and Wait” for its surreal central image and its frame narrative structure. “The Buchanan Boys Ride Again” for being a fun B-movie of a short story, where a father and son have to fight off hirsute slug monsters. “As Summer’s Mask Slips” for being the creepiest of the bunch (the behavior of the figure in the woods made my flesh crawl). Finally, the closing story, “Birds of Passage,” for being serene, unsettling, and beautiful.

If you haven’t read one of Gordon B. White’s stories, then you have much to look forward to. As Summer’s Mask Slips is a book you’ll be glad to have on your shelf.

-Ross