Black Static

In Black Static #82/83 I reviewed James Cooper's Scar Tissue, a collection of "Original stories inspired by Dark Fiction's contemporary trailblazers". I had this to say about the second story in the collection - "'The Man in the Field' is a tribute to Shirley Jackson in general and 'The Lottery' in particular, which in a way is my problem with the story. It's set in a religious community reminiscent of Shyamalan's The Village with all the women Mother and all the men Father, and an act of sacrifice required that the enigmatic figure of the titular man enacts. I think if this had been pitched simply as a story by James Cooper it would have worked better, but as a Jackson tribute it's entirely transparent - we pretty much know where the story is going, with only the details to be revealed. And by setting it in an invented community the template's sting in the tail of modern people engaged in primitive practices is lost."

Subsequently the story was expanded to novella length and published independently in paperback by Cemetery Dance, but my review of that title got pushed out of the final issue of Black Static owing to lack of space, and so I'm posting it here.

The Man in the Field starts by reproducing the original story, with nearly the whole community colluding in what happens. The story is told from the viewpoint of elderly widow Mother Tanner, with subsequent events further undermining her already shaky faith in the men who run this community, particularly the duplicitous and bullying Father Lynch. Exploring in the woods that border the community, she is turned back by armed guards working for the Ness Corporation and witnesses an act that further reinforces her negative opinion of Lynch, but confronting him only leaves Mother Tanner aware of how powerless she is.

I really don't know how I feel about this novella. It's a mix up of so many other things, Jackson's 'The Lottery' as already stated, but also echoes of The Crucible, The Tall Man, and The Village. The story is engrossing and with some memorable characters, showing both the camaraderie of women and then the odiousness of men, especially in the figure of Father Lynch, an oily git who seems like the embodiment of toxic masculinity and hypocrisy. There is much to horrify, as with one subsequent event that provided the shock the ending of the short story failed to deliver. And there is a lot to intrigue as with the figure of the Man and the question of what happens to those he takes, and the involvement of the Ness Corporation. At the same time though, the lack of a satisfactory resolution to any of these plot strands in a work of novella length is disappointing. Similarly the background to the story is only sketched, with not enough detail to make sense of its mechanics. What exactly do Mother Tanner and others in the community believe? There are references to God and the Turn of the Wheel, but overall it is a mystery. And how does the community interact with the rest of the world? They have electricity, as a reference to radio would seem to imply, but no television and don't know what mobile phones are, and there is no information regarding the economics of the community. Similarly there is contact with other communities, as with Mother Glatt's van and a reference to bus stations, but blind spots when it suits the whim of the author. To me the whole thing felt too vague, with the story intriguingly told but the world in which it is set drawn badly. Cooper is always worth reading and this novella is no exception, but at the same time it felt more like the draft for the first part of a novel, rather than a stand alone work. As is, it whets an appetite that it doesn't satisfy.