Experiments in Human Nature
by Monica J. O'Rourke
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Book Summary Information
Author: Monica J. O'RourkeEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-01-11
ISBN: 1933293454
Number of pages: 204
Publisher: Two Backed Books
Book Reviews of Experiments in Human Nature
Book Review: Monica O'Rourke rules!
Summary: 4 Stars
Monica J. O'Rourke, Experiments in Human Nature (Two-Backed Books, 2007)
I've been a big fan of the dark and twisted world of Monica O'Rourke since I read the title story from this collection a few years back in a Medium Rare Books anthology. Then I picked up her first solo novel, Suffer the Flesh, and I couldn't remember the last book that had hit me over the head quite that hard from beginning to end. Now, finally, I get a full-length collection of O'Rourke's stories, which I've been hoping for ever since reading "An Experiment in Human Nature". And man, let me tell you. Monica O'Rourke is this pretty, vivacious-looking, unassuming lass who, if her stories are to be believed, wouldn't think twice about flaying you alive, chopping off your body parts one by one while still keeping you alive, and then making you watch as she jumps up and down on them before blending them with foie gras and truffles and making them into a terrine to serve at a White House dinner. And while there are a number of writers working in that kind of extreme-horror genre, this one can really, really write. When you get brutality and artistry in the same person, you've got a recipe for magic. There are a handful of people who pull it off on a regular basis. Add O'Rourke to the list.
How many kinds of nastiness can you think of? Most of them are here. People who are hired to torture and murder those who have done others wrong. Others who feel that the only real way to understand human nature is to perform the most hideous acts they can think of on living, breathing human begins. A woman who... I'm not even going to try and get into all the mental damage that informs "Attainable Beauty", the deeply disturbing opening story here. But this is not to say that Experiments in Human Nature is flat-out balls-to-the-wall torture porn, to borrow a phrase from filmdom. It's the times when O'Rourke gets quiet that she really shows her range. "Feeder" is a love story like you've never read before (unless you frequent certain sexual-fetish websites, but O'Rourke is a much, much better writer than anyone I know of who has ever attempted the subject matter). And "Five Adjectives About My Dad, by Nadine Specter" is an exploration of child abuse that somehow manages to entirely forego the usual message crap you'd expect from such a thing and just lays itself out there in the language of a small child. It's heartbreaking, it's minimal in the extreme, and it's about half a step away from perfect. The last horror story I remember reading with this kind of power is Richard Christian Matheson's "Red", a story I first read so long ago I can't tell you how long ago it was (but I know it's been at least fifteen years).
But then, to call O'Rourke's stories "horror" is, I think, something of a misnomer, just as calling gore movies "horror" is. There's nothing much of horror, as I think of it, to be found here; these stories slot more neatly into the drama or action genres, in the main, than they do horror. I don't think this stuff is really meant to scare you, except perhaps in the most existential of ways, but it does the things that good drama and action do to you; respectively, shed light on some things that don't normally get light shed on them and get the blood pounding and the adrenaline surging. It's also, with a few exceptions, a lot less graphic than Suffer the Flesh, so if you're not familiar with the dark and twisted world of Monica J. O'Rourke, this is an excellent place to start. Highly recommended. ****
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