Nothing But Blackened Teeth, by Cassandra Khaw; Nightfire Books, October, 2021. 125 pages. Hardcover $19.99. Ebook $10.99
I know a story hits when I am muttering curses under my breath as I finish it. Cassandra Khaw’s Nothing But Blackened Teeth had them dripping from my mouth like rabid foam by the time the last words slipped over my eyes and into my brain. Not since Piccirilli have I experienced gothic horror that affected me at this level.
Simple synopsis: 5 friends meet at a purportedly haunted Japanese manse to celebrate the nuptials of two of them. Their personal pasts, as well as the evils soaked into the foundation of the building boil to the surface. Grievances are aired, ghosts dig their way out from graves and, the hideousness of the self ensues.
Yup. I dug the ever-lovin out of this book. The prose is purple enough to feel like the musty oils of well aged scotch across the tongue but punchy enough to bruise like a beast. The story sits at a tight 125 pages but still takes the time to let us get to know the characters and the animosities that con only be born of intimacy and years before letting the rot run riot over it all. How the heck this lady managed to pull off something that feels so languorous and breakneck at the same time is astounding.
The story itself carries every bit of the gothic and noir it needs to: that sense that everything can and will go wrong and there is nothing any of us can do to stop it cooped with the unbearable weight of history that guides our hands. At the same time, there is the distinctly feminine hand fighting against these quite historically and vehemently masculine forms. The understanding that, if only this idiotic belief that just a bit more strength and a bit more control were exerted then all would be well, every horrid event could be averted.
The whole of Nothing But Blackened Teeth crackles with rage and drowns in despair and my heart swells with it. This is a hell of a book and I need to read more of Khaw’s work.
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