Treasury of American Horror Stories

Rating:
Summary: Some Stories Are Timeless
Review: Originally, when I had set down to transcribe my new year's resolutions from thought to paper; I had no intention of including this book in my 2005 reading list. Not because it is a "bad" or poorly written book or even the fact that it was published when I was only six years old. No, the primary reason was that I had read this book in spurts about a dozen times between 1988 and 1992, as it was the first "grown-up" book I had ever purchased and taken an interest in.

It was only while sifting through some items we have boxed up in storage, while my wife and I wait for our house to be built, that I stumbled across this long forgotten text. The cover alone, a take on the "American Gothic" painting was enough to send chills up my spine when I first read this book, a time when I still had the pleasure of attending recess daily and drinking chocolate milk straight out of a half-pint cardboard container.

As I flipped through the table of contents I was reminded of how many renowned writers work had been republished in this anthology. Names like King, Twain, Bradbury and Lovecraft jumped out at me and demanded that I give these yellowed pages another look. Some of the stories were captivating, like the short story Twilla and Smells Like Cherries while some others fell flat. This anthology reminded me that not all horror and mystery tales need to rely upon blood and gore, sometimes true terror rests in the subtle details, an important lesson for many writers. For the horror aficionado, this book is a must read and horror writers should consider it a guidebook for what makes and breaks in the genre.