User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
A gorgeous and wildly varied debut collection. Wonderful writing.
Rating: really liked it
I still remember that when I first dove deeper into the world of horror/fantasy/weird literature, I was in awe at how incredibly imaginative some authors could be. As Summer's Mask Slips brought this feeling back to me so vividly! Gordon B. White's scope is as wide as can be, and I found myself giddy with the excitement of not knowing where the next story would take me! Not every story worked for me, but I still consider this a 5-star collection because the ones that did were truly memorable, some because of the vision they embody, some because of their originality, and others because of their sheer power. I am not sure who was responsible for the order of the stories, but they did a great job. Between the amazing opener Hair Shirt Drag, which is one of my favorites, and the heart-rending Birds of Passage, we are presented with real gems, such as The Lure of the Lollipop Tree (another favorite!), The Buchanan Boys Ride Again, Mise En Abyme (another favorite!), and As Summer's Mask Slips. With his first collection, White not only showcases his undeniable skill and far-reaching range, he gives us a very good reason to be on the lookout for more of his work.
Rating: really liked it
With his first collection, "As Summer's Mask Slips", Gordon B. White scores a bull's eye. If the stories seem eclectic at first, ranging from folk-horror to surrealist horror fairy tales, a strong vision and impeccable story-telling holds them together in a tightly coherent volume. A master of the uncanny and strong atmospheres, Gordon B. White will undoubtedly gain his seat as a true master of the horrific and weird.
Rating: really liked it
Quite possibly one of the finest collections of weird horror of all time.
Rating: really liked it
An impressive and enjoyable collection of dark fiction. There’s a little something that touches on nearly all of horror’s various subgenres, including tales of revenge, creature features, gritty dystopias, surreal fairytales, and quieter, atmospheric stories of grief and loss. Among the regular length short stories are also a handful of short, wonderfully constructed vignettes like “The Sputtering Wick of the Stars, which is utterly perfect.
Despite the wide range of the book, the stories cohere together beautifully, flowing from one to another like a mix tape (remember those?). The stories are unified by White’s prose itself, which is eminently readable, evocative yet clear, with pinches of well-timed black humor that contribute to the unique tone of the collection. There are some seriously dark stories here, but they are also fun to read. Crucially though, the ‘fun’ does not undermine the emotional impact of the stories themselves; rather, it adds the necessary human element that will resonate with readers well-beyond the horror or weird genres. Highlights like “The Lure of the Lollipop Tree” and “Birds of Passage” are just damn good stories that explore universal pains that all of us confront eventually.
I’m very eager to read more from this fellow and would definitely recommend this collection!
Rating: really liked it
I have it on dependable authority that Gordon B. White maintains a daily regimen of long-hand writing exercises (you might glimpse a mention of this practice by way of some of his social-media posts). It’s a presumption, but I can’t help but consider that this pen-to-paper practice (diurnal journaling not being a unique task for many writers, though possibly an exhaustive disciplinary tactic to civilian sensibilities) has been a galvanizing ingredient in the syllable-by-syllable precision of White’s fiction.
“Writing exercises are maps, not the destination,” writes novelist Bret Anthony Johnston. “They are the keys to the castle, not the castle itself.” As such, Gordon B. White reveals himself as both cartographer and locksmith in his debut collection, AS SUMMER'S MASK SLIPS AND OTHER DISRUPTIONS.
A coiling of quality and control, White’s collection houses a reverence for language and style, and showcases a devotion to the expansive spectrum of influence — a fictive continuum ranging from an intellectual, arthouse aesthetic to Creepshow escapism. White flexes enough of a scribbler’s muscle to make the collection, in its aggregate, subtlety instructive — pay attention to not only how he’s crafted the tales, but how (and perhaps his editorial collaborators) have elected to structure the collection.
The first half of the collection is threaded with themes of psychological precariousness and the necrotic logic of religious delusions; we abrade here too glimpses of deteriorative mental states and the gloomy aspects of domestic relationships.
The collection’s opener, “Hair Shirt Drag,” is a brief examination of social-sexual norms and a meditation on ritualized expectation — certainly, for our protagonist, but also for us as participants. A tale riddled with telegraphic pinpricks which act as an accretion for a final incantation: the story’s hue also functions as a reflection for White’s collection itself. “Words don’t mean nothing,” says the tale’s narrator. “It’s only intention that makes things happen.” White, however, is all too aware of the potency of words.
White’s initial acts also bear a sequence of shorter, flash-fiction pieces which successfully play like tonal interludes between stories (“But you were right. The Beast is coming”); likewise, further on readers will find “The Hollow,” a brief piece which works more like a well-defined sketch — a fermenting barm with all the characteristics of a fully-formed story eagerly waiting to be fed.
But by the second half, White quietly gives readers over to a series of more sober stories with an analysis of duality and the significance of altruistic paternality (which I’ll get back to in a few seconds).
Of note is “Open Fight Night at the Dirtbag Casino,” a poignant contemplation on the oxidizing qualities of revenge in the face of forfeited salvation. As short story collections are a useful tool for showcasing an array of creative capabilities, White demonstrates a variety of devices — on display here, a penchant for voice (“believe me, babies”) is shrewdly executed.
I can’t help but subjectively project the possibility that this tale was borne out of White’s laborious ethos when it comes to his craft. “I don’t have a way to keep track of how many times we’ve done this,” admits the narrator, and it’s interesting, in a macro sense, to wonder at White’s back-to-the-drawing-board awareness — which all writers resignedly confront — as he repeatedly slips on the skin of would-be short-story protagonists. “You’re never the same train hitting the same wall, the same straw on the camel’s back … [y]ou just gotta keep spinning, again and again, to see where it lands.” White’s violent piece concludes with a tenebrous and potent punch.
Opening, on the other hand, with a flurry of fistacuffs, is “Eight Affirmations For the Revolting Body, Confiscated From the Prisoners of Bunk 17.” Bound to a prison camp during an Us-versus-Them global war, the story hits satisfying dystopian notes while narratively balancing on razor-wire between horror and science-fiction. It’s scary and bleak, but closes on a bittersweet “note.”
But it’s “The Buchanan Boys Ride Again” that breaks the thematic fever of the first half of the book. A sort of salute to 80s horror and stitched with action-comedy quips, my main nit is a lack of clarity in the “creature” component’s explanation, the story, in commendable capacity, suffers from the same symptom as “The Hollow”: the skeletal system clearly urges expansion.
“The Buchanan Boys” is infused with enjoyable humor, but the underpinning preoccupation is clear and quite touching: the (ostensibly mundane) magnitude of fathers.
And while readers will glean as much in the closing sequences of stories, the collection’s dedication page is succinctly poignant. “For my father James — a teller of tales and gone too soon.” Gone, yes, but White has ensured that the man’s presence, and influential legacy, reverently resonates on our page.
Aided by a sluicing first-person execution, and imbued with themes of duality, loss, responsibility, the reflective “Birds of Passage” stands as the collection’s closer. “As I myself grow older, I often think back to that night on the river. About how there’s a world around us, but beyond us, too. A world that takes things, changes them, but sometimes gives them back. All of it — all of it is ripples.”
The catchy cadences of Gordon B. White’s prose serve as stepping stones for readers crossing the pleasantly deceptive arteries of his disquieting narratives. AS SUMMER'S MASK SLIPS AND OTHER DISRUPTIONS is an impressive exercise in precision, and a celebration of the unsettling.
Read more at https://clintsmithfiction.com/:
https://clintsmithfiction.com/2019/11...
Rating: really liked it
Gordon B. White is a writer I've had the fortune of being familiar with. He's made appearanaces in some of my favorite anthologies ("A Breath from the Sky" from Martian Migraine Press and "Twice-Told" from Cthonic Matter) so it's good, rewarding thing to sit down with a body of his work. The stories are witchy, angry and wrathful. There are also some shorter pieces, almost flash-fiction, which are brutal and offer high-concepts in very few words. The clear winner is the concluding tale, "Birds of Passage," which I would sell as a more emotional "the Willows" focusing on a father-son relationship. White recently made Ellen Datlow's best horror of the year, so I recommend potential fans get on the groundfloor of said fandom.
Rating: really liked it
If you want a sample of what’s in store for you with this collection, “Birds of Passage” is available to listen to for free over at PseudoPod. This is a story about an overnight canoe trip though territory that gets folded, and time becomes loose, and there may be some extra-dimensional paths. This is all set through explorations of father-son relationships and childhood friendships that make you want to pick up the phone to reach out and touch someone after the story finishes. Several more samples are available over at Tales to Terrify.
“Hair Shirt Drag” is a rural gothic witchy story of empowerment and revenge. There is a cost for power and protection and safety, but it is not always due from those expected. “We Eat Dirt and Sleep and Wait” is a beautifully written tale with striking imagery and a dark core. “The Sputtering Wick of the Stars” is a snappy flash story that lands its punch, clicks the light off, and leaves us to our thoughts in the dark. This collection is consistently entertaining and thoroughly worth your time.
Rating: really liked it
The review linked below is not one of my best (see "there are no aliens here," followed by "where the women-ruled world is invaded and overtaken by aliens") because reviews of books of short stories, particularly in genres that one rarely indulges, are clunky and difficult to write. So, it was easiest to write about Gordon as a friend and workshop colleague and to write a commentary on genre fiction. This probably does the work a disservice, and in truth, I would probably only give this 4 stars because it is not an unflinching peerless masterpiece. This is Gordon's literary debut, and it is extremely difficult to write a perfect first book. But more often than not, it reads like the unveiling of a borderline-genius talent. There is definitely more going on in these stories than I could perceive and there is more to Gordon's craft than I can properly appreciate, because I am not a student of the genre.
Still, I could appreciate a handful of these stories--especially "Birds of Passage" and "The Buchanan Boys Ride Again" (and "Open Fight Night at the Dirtbag Casino" and "Mise en Abyme," to slightly lesser degrees). Several other stories are excellent, but I didn't "get" them, and some of them are good, but so short that they feel like larks, non-sequiturs, or poetic portraits of a scene. A few of the stories are extremely strange and abstract (I am thinking of two stories about houses, one that falls into the earth and another that is pseudo-"haunted"). They are not always scary.
In fact, "Birds of Passage," is one of the most life-affirming stories I have read. It's such a beautiful piece that I would recommend it to anyone. It's about a simple overnight camping trip between a father and his 10-year-old son, and the weird supernatural experience they have, and how they talk about it, and remember it forever. With this story alone (but really, with several others also), Gordon is separated from the pack and elevated into the nether realm of professional, yet mostly undiscovered writers. It's possible he's going to be "discovered" in a year or two. While genre fiction holds limited appeal to me, Stephen King is the most successful author of all-time. I am not saying Gordon White is Stephen King (we must acknowledge Stephen King as a typing robot, simply superhuman in his productivity) but I am saying that if he widens his scope, and sets his mind towards an ambitious novel, he could write one just as good.
https://flyinghouses.blogspot.com/202...
Rating: really liked it
This is one of the most consistent short story collections I've ever read.
Rating: really liked it
A magnificent and impressive debut collection.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
Goodreads recommended this book of short stories to me, otherwise I doubt I would have ever discovered it on my own. It looks self-published, a pretty flimsy paperback with subpar cover art, and the Chicago Public Library has exactly one copy.
All that being said, this author is very promising. I think this book was recommended to me after finishing a book by Ottessa Moshfegh which makes sense - both authors deal with creeping horror and uncertain endings. He does a nice job writing from a variety of perspectives, and does a surprisingly believable job of writing from a woman's point of view. His horror is often rooted in emotions and some were quite lovely. Some of the stories were very short, which I liked - knowing when to end a story is a skill. Some of the stories were a little too conceptual to follow, but broadly I found this book to be surprisingly enjoyable. If he publishes another book, I would read it.
Recommend to fans of horror, weirdness, and patience for an author that in some cases still seems to be finding his voice.
Rating: really liked it
Gordon B. White’s debut collection As Summer’s Mask Slips and Other Disruptions is a beautifully designed book. The stories here are full of rich voices, evocative surroundings, and strange happenings.
Published in April 2020 by Journalstone-Trepidatio, As Summer’s Mask Slips and Other Disruptions features fifteen Weird and horror stories. Among my favorites were “Hair Shirt Drag,” a Southern Gothic-inspired tale of a genderfluid witch; “We Eat Dirt and Sleep and Wait,” full of dread and fairytales and singing worms, and “The Lure of the Lollipop Tree,” a tale of domestic horror. The collection also includes powerful flash stories such as “Ultramarine” and “The Sputtering Wick of the Stars." “Birds of Passage,” the final story in this collection, has been compared to Algernon Blackwood’s “The Willows.”
Rating: really liked it
A fantastic collection here. Varied and endlessly strange, with a number of very cool techniques and story engines that I haven't seen in short fiction often. Not every story was a hit for me, but the ones I connected with are going to stick with me for a looooong time. And even with the ones I couldn't necessarily get behind, White provides plenty of moments of fantastic writing at the sentence-level.
But for real, “Eight Affirmations For the Revolting Body, Confiscated From the Prisoners of Bunk 17,” with its bleak alien-prison camp storyline and reverse chronology, is one of the most stunning horror stories I've read in years.
Moments of sci-fi, body horror, violent reincarnation, fun father/son-fight-the-monsters-yarns, and a steady heartbeat of fantastic writing running through it all. I'll be stoked to read whatever White comes up with next.
