Empathy for the Damned: Jeffrey Thomas’s Carrion Men
CARRION MEN by Jeffrey Thomas, published by Plutonian Press.
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effrey Thomas’s latest collection, Carrion Men, from Plutonian Press showcases seven of Thomas’s short stories—five reprints and two originals—tethered by the loose theme of men crushed by the drudgery of day to day life and the horrors they find themselves confronting. This medley of heartbreaking tales could be slapped with the label of weird fiction, but that would be selling Thomas’s talent short as the work within is just as much body horror erotica as it is cyberpunk fantasy.
Plagued by fringe desires, pain and losses that eclipse all else around them these characters aren’t faceless stand-ins dropped into their own personal dioramas of horror. No, each protagonist is driven by something unique, whether it’s a love for phantasmagoric sexual experiences (“The Tangible Universe”) or denying one’s talent until driven to destruction and alienation (“The Crying Boy”). However, these beautifully rendered broken people aren’t so far off the deep end that their motivations aren’t relatable. Anyone that’s suffered through a nine-to-five office job can relate to John and his alternate dimension counterpart in “Scorpion Face” who shuffle forth to conduct their menial tasks day after day and end their nights dreaming of death—this story in particular is the most apt and honest reflection of what a mindless day job in an office truly feels like.
Thomas is also one of those rare writers that are both gifted with their ideas and the ability to masterfully translate those images and feelings onto the page. The man in “The Tangible Universe” doesn’t look upon the monstrosities that await him behind closed doors with any type of disgust. He’s drawn to them the way someone might find themselves yearning for a lover, and though, we might feel appalled at the actions that take place, Thomas isn’t writing from an outsider’s perspective or looking down on his character’s from a superior high-tower, but pulling us into the dark with them, so by the time the story ends we might not feel the same way they do, but we certainly understand them.
The only real dip in quality here is the placement of the final story, “Door 7.” At nearly novella length it might’ve sat better as the collection’s centerpiece. However, an argument can be made that everything that comes before it is a primer for the finale, which echoes the best of early Cronenberg.
Writing a story where stock characters suffer a fate worse than their actions is easy. Folks want that hit of poetic justice, a morality tale in an executioner’s hood. However, the people that fill the pages of Carrion Men aren’t bad guys getting theirs or heroes acting as a light in the dark. No, the men here are the ones that go unnoticed. They’re Tom from a few cubicles over who you forget about the moment you punch out. They’re the ones truly lost in the world that find solace in the places most wouldn’t dare to tread and Thomas’s mission to convey these stories of men marching toward their own bleak, horrifying futures is an incredible success.
