Art And Becoming

Rating:
Summary: "Every soul is in a permanent state of flux"
Review: Phil Luxor has been driving the "Bony Express," picking up the bodies of the recently (and not-so-recently) deceased and dropping them off at the county morgue during the graveyard shift for a while now. Long enough to go through several partners. Though he can't put his finger on it, something is different about his most recently acquired partner, Jeff.

Jeff French seems like any "normal" guy simply trying to make a living. Though his new job isn't as ideal as it could be, it provides him with decent cash flow allowing him to pay his expenses and a way to try and forget about his past. His partner, Phil, seems nice enough until Jeff notices him stealing small trinkets off of some of the bodies they are sent to pick up. When questioned, Phil merely states that they are for his "collection." Jeff later learns from another co-worker that Phil is an artist on the side, and has been working on his masterpiece, Metamorpho, for about a year.

These two were paired up for a reason, and one night when Phil divulges his theories on art and his collection to Jeff, and Jeff in turn divulges the secrets of his past to Phil, they will discover just what that reason was.

Art and Becoming is what any great horror novel should be. It's intriguing, fun, and fast-paced without being too shallow or lifeless. Drew Williams manages to paint a vivid picture without being overly verbose and littering the page with superfluous fluff. At only 105 pages, Art and Becoming makes for a simple read that can easily be finished in one highly entertaining sitting. I only wish it had been a little bit longer, and the characters perhaps slightly more developed. Nonetheless, this is well worth a read!

"An artist takes raw materials and transforms them into something new" (Williams, 49).

Rating:
Summary: Gave Me Goosebumps!!
Review: What a read! Finished it in two sittings!
I'm going to take a stab at summarizing this masterpiece for you without spoilers, so here it goes:

Two young men work at a morgue, loading stiffs into "Bony Express" (the name of the car that transports dead bodies from the scene to the morgue). One of these fine young able bodied men has a thing for collecting souvenirs off the bodies (knick-knacks like hairpins, hearing aides, etc). The other man seems pretty normal, but it just so happens that everytime he looks into a mirror, he sees this red-haired chick with black eyes screaming.
I'm going to stop for fear that if I go on, I may end up putting a cramp in the ride. All you need to know is that it is very well-written (I'm talking like "stephen King," well-written); it scared the $^%#^ out of me, has some brutal twists, conjures up some Lovecraft-ish imagagery, and is one of the best horror stories I've read this year.

Have I gone mad, or is North Carolina becoming "the state" of the best horror writers? (Scott Nicholson, Drew Williams, Stephanie Simpson-Woods) Ah, who cares? Just keep churning out the gore, doesn't matter where it came from.