Book Review : Heath Lowrance - Dig Ten Graves (2011)

Country: USA

Genre: Dark Literary/Horror/Noir

Pages: 185 kb (eOriginal)

Buy it here

I have read Heath Lowrance's debut novel THE BASTARD HAND last winter and thought it was really good. While it clearly stated its inspirations (Flannery O'Connor, Jim Thompson), it brought a fresh, creative view of the southern novel and a delightful cynicism to the plate. That's more than most writers on their first try. When he released DIG TEN GRAVES last summer, I told myself "Cool, he pieced up some of his earlier stories together for his readers", not expecting anything much out of it. I thought it would be a quiet interlude in between two novels. Turned out I was wrong. Mr. Lowrance doesn't fuck around whenever he picks up his pen. Surprisingly enough, I liked DIG TEN GRAVES even more than I liked THE BASTARD HAND. This collection shows not only an improvement from Lowrance's prior release, but also a clear and continuous line of thoughts, which is what separates the great writers from the rest of the pack.

First, let me tell you about that storySouth Award nominated IT WILL ALL BE CARRIED AWAY. It's beautiful. More than beautiful, it's a magnificent short story about the power of melancholy and the violence of time. It's hard to explain, but the narrator reads in the newspaper that a girl he used to know died of an overdose in the back seat of a car. Not his ex-girlfriend, just a girl he knew and who he spent a very peculiar, yet very important moment with. The power of her name alone, a name he has kept buried for the longest time, brings him back to this moment with a twenty years perspective gap. This is a very powerful story that could easily be compared to a darkened spin on the Wong-Kar Wai movies. It would make a tremendous movie in itself.

While IT WILL ALL BE CARRIED AWAY is one of the best stories of the collection and it's the first, many other stories pack some power here. INCIDENT ON A RAIN-SOAKED CORNER is an intellectualizing look on the chaotic and frail nature of life. THE MOST NATURAL THING IN THE WORLD is a gripping reminder of our animal nature. But beyond the stories, what is truly remarkable is the coherent line of thoughts that goes through the collection like an invisible thread. The stories of DIG TEN GRAVES aren't taken from pure outside inspiration. There are recurring themes like hurt and injured protagonists, looking only to survive. Loss is also a theme that connects all of the stories together. It's more obvious in certain ones and more subtle in others, but it's always there. The characters of Heath Lowrance are deconstructed in a way or another and they never really seek wholeness, but barely survival. Given that the themes are sometimes very common, there is such a thing as a Heath Lowrance universe and it's the mark of great writers. After reading DIG TEN GRAVES, you will be able to know when you're reading a Lowrance, without even checking the cover.

It's always exciting to witness a writer find his voice and his universe like that. While the stories are a scatter shooting of different genres, it actually helps focusing on the quality of the writing, rather than to scan through for known elements. Heath Lowrance has a style that is how own, characters that are his, I can only see his career going upwards after reading such a strong release. I had discussions with the writer in the past, where he said he disliked to be pigeonholed in a genre and after reading DIG TEN GRAVES I can understand why it doesn't suit him. A few of the stories stretch the border of his philosophy a bit thin (ALWAYS TOO LATE, which was my least favorite of the collection), but it's really not hindering the overall quality. If you have a Kindle, you have to check this one out. It's dirt cheap and it's straight out amazing writing. Keep Heath Lowrance on your radar, because he just picked up a lot of steam.