Black Static

Published by Flame Tree Press in September 2022, Fellstones by Ramsey Campbell is one of the titles that didn't make it into the Case Notes section of Black Static #82/83 owing to lack of space, so this online review comes as a consolation prize.

Paul Dunstan is contented with his job at Texts and girlfriend Caren, but one day a young woman turns up at the shop and refers to him as Michael Staveley. Years before, after his parents were killed in a car crash, Paul was adopted by Winifred and Rafe Staveley, who insisted that he was a musical prodigy and tried to force him to go to music school, resulting in his eventual revolt and break with the family. The young woman is their daughter Adele and she tells him that the Staveleys are dying. Paul is coerced into returning to the village of Fellstones, which takes its name from the seven standing stones on the village green, but it's a far from happy return. Memories of his childhood come rushing back, the fearsome figure of Mr Jellyfingers and the way in which Winifred used to manipulate him. The Staveleys and the other inhabitants of Fellstones have plans for Paul Dunstan and, to paraphrase text on the book's cover, those dreaming stones are about to awaken.

This is Campbell in fine form, combining a number of familiar elements to produce something that is original and uniquely his own, a fusion of cosmic and folk horror. Paul is a typical Campbell protagonist, somebody who is a bit too collusive in his own fate, who is all too often acted upon rather than acting. You feel that he could so easily break out of the trap into which he is lured, but fails to do so through a combination of guilt and simple politeness. He's a man who tries simply to keep his head down, with the result that all too often he is trod on and taken advantage of, as for example by his girlfriend and employer. The Staveleys are all too human monsters, especially the overbearing Winifred, who is hell bent on getting her own way no matter what it takes and has a special talent for guilt tripping others, twisting everything that is said to her own ends.. The inhabitants of Fellstones are a staple of the folk horror subgenre, a community with its own rules and traditions, like the residents of Summer Isle or the group in Get Out, and who have their own plans for the outsider they welcome with such open arms. To both these films Fellstones bears a passing similarity while retaining its own identity. There is even that old familiar, the cryptic local who tries to warn Paul what is going on, though in such elliptical terms he might as well not have bothered.

Deftly woven into the text is a love of classical music, seen in the name that tune games that the Staveleys play, Paul/Michael's tuition in music and song, and finally the fact that a song he devised is to be the catalyst for the novel's final, climactic events. Against this Campbell adds his usual moments of humour, seen most obviously in Paul's clash with a music pundit out to promote his know it all book and in the scene where he is trapped in the attic of the Staveley house for lack of a ladder, which might have devolved into pure farce in less skilled hands. The back story with its alchemy and the alien nature of the stones, is skilfully incorporated into the text, adding yet more depth and more than a hint of the Jamesian to the narrative, while providing a backbone for the plot and laying the groundwork for the book's end game, though even here Campbell gives us another frisson with an unlooked for element of the grotesque.

Fellstones is a fine example of storytelling in the horror mode from a master of the form. After nearly sixty years as a published writer, Ramsey Campbell is still producing work that is subtle and original, providing the chills that we've come to expect from his pen, and that is something we can all be grateful for.