Dark Celebrations Is Another Knock Out By Demmer!
I’m a huge fan of holidays. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. Lots of people love to get together with family or friends to celebrate one occasion or another. For some, the reason for the gathering doesn’t even matter, just the fact that you get to be with those people to celebrate something makes the holidays good. It doesn’t even matter what holiday it is. Barbecue on the Fourth of July? I’m there. Pizza party to celebrate someone’s birthday? Count me in. Costume party on Halloween? I’m there and my costume will make you laugh. The point is, there are lots of reasons people celebrate and gather together. In his collection Dark Celebrations, Calvin Demmer touches on all the holidays you’d think of and even some you wouldn’t think of.
After his Flash fiction collection released last year, The Sea is a Fair Master was a home run for me I was excited to get the chance to read and review this new collection. For me, Demmer is at his best writing the flash fiction of his first collection. Not that the stories in this collection are bad, some of them are very good, but when I was reading them, I was waiting for the very short stories that Demmer gave me last time that punched me in the gut before I even knew what I was reading.
However, Demmer’s skill in flash-fiction makes his more traditional short stories chock full of story and detail. We know he can cram a lot of story into very few words and he continues this with these longer works as his characters are well developed and the plots rich and intense.
I enjoyed all of the stories featured in this collection, but of the twelve stories (and holidays) featured, there were three that stood out to me over the others.
Labor Day Hunt was the first one. My notes for this story simply said, “Wow, Vampire Hunt,” and I think that sums it up pretty well. A guy is low on cash and looking for ways to make money so he answers an ad he sees for a quick two hundred bucks. He doesn’t realize when he shows up for the job that he’s going to be hunting down vampires. The action is quick and intense in this one and it was probably my favorite of all the stories.
Trick or Death was the next one that I really loved. This story, obviously revolving around Halloween, involves a guy trying to film more Interesting YouTube videos for his channel on Halloween night. It ends with him in a disturbing and dangerous situation. This story made me speak aloud to the protagonist while I was reading. Another fast paced story, this one doesn’t have as much action as the previous one, but has a great and disturbing ending.
The third story is Thanks Sinning and it provided, I thought, the most interesting character of all the stories in the book. The antagonist, Lucy, is interesting from the beginning and when she reveals her true nature later in the story only becomes more interesting. The premise of this story is that a guy, DeShawn, meets Lucy at a bar on Thanksgiving. He ends up back at her place but she tells him she won’t have sex with him until he proves he’s a “real man” by killing a living thing. When he fails to kill a bird, she suggests he move on to something a little larger. But I’ll stop there and let you find out the rest of this one yourself.
Overall, Dark Celebrations is a tremendous collection that will make us all rethink the next holiday that comes up. Demmer writes each story in a way only he can, creating believable characters and then subjecting them to the worst possible events that could happen on any of these holidays.
Don’t want to miss anything on the site? Sign up for our newsletter HERE
Want more spooky reads? Just search below:
