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LIKE A CHARM
by Karin Slaughter, editor
Dark Alley, May 2005
384 pages
$13.95
ISBN: 0060583312


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

In 1803 in the newly-minted State of Georgia, Neanderthal-like fur trader Macon Orme barters with a group of Native Americans for a gold charm bracelet. He gets what he wants, but he also becomes encumbered with the tribal shaman's curse. This curse follows the bracelet through 200 years of history and across the Atlantic twice, as told in the 17 short stories by 16 authors that make up LIKE A CHARM.

Technically speaking, the idea of the multi-continental, collaborative story centred on a cursed object is not new. I kept thinking, as I read LIKE A CHARM, of the 1999 film THE RED VIOLIN, which traced the travels of the cursed blood-red instrument through a series of shorts made by different production teams in Italy, the United Kingdom, China and Canada, with each tale following the prediction of a tarot reader for a specific card. Like THE RED VIOLIN, LIKE A CHARM benefits from the contributions of authors from a range of countries: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Netherlands.

The metaphor of the charm bracelet is original and cleverly chosen. Each charm is an image intelligible by itself, but is also part of a chain of images, just like the stories in the anthology. Some of the stories refer to previous stories in the chain. In one phase of its history, the charm bracelet is evidence in a murder investigation, and subsequently ends up forgotten in an evidence locker. In The Snake Eater By the Numbers, author Lee Child, finds an innovative and plausible way to get it out of storage and into the world again.

The stories range in genre from horror to suspense and mystery, with one eclectic example of magic realism, John Connolly's The Inkpot Monkey. Some are compelling and could stand solidly on their own.

Emma Donoghue's quietly horrific Vanitas, evokes life among Louisiana Creole slave-owners from the viewpoint of 15-year-old Aimee Locoul (loosely inspired by an historical figure). The psychological drama of the story builds from Aimee's nonchalance about the evil that surrounds and supports her.

Peter Moore Smith's The Things We Did to Lamar depicts the nightmare of schoolkid bullying without preachiness or sentimentality. In Jerrilyn Farmer's The Eastlake School, a girl whose alcoholic, social-climbing mother won't let her grow up appears more empathetic than pitiable.

The first and last stories are by Karin Slaughter, the Georgia-based editor of the collection. In that last one, The Blessing of Brokenness, a Baptist church employee who zealously stuffs envelopes for anti-abortion guiltmongers learns a lesson about those who sit in judgement. Whilst drawing some subtle comparisons between the horror genre and the propaganda of Mary Lou's employers, Slaughter weaves irony and topical satire with horror in surprising and topical ways.

The anthology bogs down a bit in the middle section, which is dominated by tales of marital infidelity, domestic violence, and murderous revenge that aren't dissimilar enough to be individually memorable. The best pieces of this work are more impressive than the whole, but I'm glad that the conceit gave their writers the opportunity to create and publish them.

Reviewed by Rebecca Nesvet, January 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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