Friday, September 14, 2007

Laird Barron's The Imago Sequence



Although it's not Barron's first published story, "Old Virginia" opens The Imago Sequence, giving readers a taste for the gruesome, disturbing tales of the supernatural that follow. Roger Garland is an aging CIA agent assigned the security detail of Operation TALLHAT, an experimental study involving a strange woman who may or may not be a clairvoyant. Garland is surrounded with reminders of past failures and signs that a changing of the guard is taking place, not only in his own life, but on a much larger scale.

Of course there's much more to the story than that. Like all Barron protagonists, Garland is a flawed man with a troubled past. There are forces in the universe (even in the same tent with him) that are so far beyond his comprehension that the revelation hits him (and the reader) like a world of tidal waves.

"Old Virginia" is probably the most straight-forward of Barron's tales. If it grabs you, the other eight stories in this collection will grab you, shake you, and rattle your insides against what you just thought was the protection of your woefully insufficient skeletal structure.

But the second story "Shiva, Open Your Eye" plants the seed that there's a larger, overarching connection to these stories. Many are set in and around Olympia, Washington and involve a cosmic entity of ravenous evil often referred to as Belphegor. But to think that Barron simply places a variety of characters in similar and recurring situations would be a mistake. Each story has a different flavor, whether we're dealing with a security consultant in Hong Kong, a gunfighter in the Old West, bounty hunters, or a hired muscleman searching for a trio of sinister photographs. Barron repeats himself only in the quality of his work.

Barron has been compared to Lovecraft, but since my contact with Lovecraft is (thus far, anyway) very limited, I can't really concur. But if Lovecraft's fiction is that of inescapable nightmares, intense psychological torment, bottomless dread and just plain fear, Barron can definitely hold his own.

These are incredibly rich, powerful stories told by a writer that loves language and detail. But be warned: While you're reveling in the masterful use of language and imagery, don't be surprised if you feel the walls (and what might be inside them) closing in on you. The Imago Sequence gets my highest possible recommendation.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey, did you finish The Sun Also Rises yet? If so, wudja think?

Andy Wolverton said...

Quite possibly my favorite Hemingway novel. Earlier in the summer I read (listened to) For Whom the Bell Tolls, which I enjoyed, but felt more of a connection with The Sun Also Rises. Very different from For Whom, and not at all what I expected. Could be that's one of the reasons I liked it so much. These are characters I want to meet again, so a more in-depth reading (if not a study) is probably on the horizon in the next few months.

Unknown said...

Those two are my favorites, but I'm biased because they're both about Spain. I don't care for Farewell to Arms really.

I hate to throw more Hemingway at you, but I believe The Sun Also Rises is complemented greatly by Death in the Afternoon, which is non-fiction but is about bullfighting. The point of the whole bullfighting sequence in TSAR (besides being good in its own right) is crystal clear after reading DITA.

Also, I don't know if you've read In Our Time or the collected stories of Hemingway, but I strongly recommend them to any writer. Hemingway takes more or less the same subject matter and gives a treatment in short stories, novels, and non-fiction. They all complement each other greatly.

Unknown said...

And all apologies to Laird Barron for talking about Papa Hemingway on his dime!