Thanatrauma - A Collective Stirring of Ardor
I received my hardcover copy of Steve Rasnic Tem’s Thanatrauma - signed and numbered, last month. I am honoured to own an autographed book by Tem, a powerhouse of horror who can make you feel so much. And that cover? So beautifully detailed and overflowing with raw pain. I studied it often and showed everyone sitting in my vicinity on multiple occasions. It’s staggering.
Now for the contents of the book - just as staggering. I relish every word Tem writes. I devour everything slowly so that my imagination can bring to life the exquisite descriptions he had in mind. Man, it’s a ride. In one of the stories a character mentions that watching movies is almost as good as dreaming. That’s how I feel about reading Tem’s work.
My favourite stories were:
Saudade - This had a Ghost Ship feeling to it. It felt loving, sorrowful, and then suddenly terrifying.
A Stay at the Shores - Offered a sense of Purgatory disguised as a vacation retreat.
Forwarded - A look into the mind of a man who knows he’s not all there and that something dark lurks within him. This one really pulled me in.
The Parts Man - My absolute favourite story of the lot. A man drives from memory to memory, picking up the people he wronged in life while the Parts Man takes his due along the way. Stunning and very freaky.
Sleepwalking with Angels - A despairing look into someone losing who they are. It reads like you are watching yourself become overcome with dementia. It sent my heart and mind into a fit of agony.
This collection wrestles with ideas of life disintegrating, existentialism, death, the afterlife, and all of the possible horrors in between. Loss often plays a starring role in many of them too, which I interpreted to be some of Tem’s personal experiences leaking onto the page. I hope it was cathartic for him, because it was an unreservedly prodigious hit for me. You must read this collection.
