Human Tenderloin by Craig Wallwork: a book review
Publish Date: September 15, 2021; Underbelly Books
Synopsis: “A prematurely ageing girl learns to fly during the end of the world. A husband makes the ultimate sacrifice for his dying wife. Two brothers endure a rainstorm that lasts five years. A father tries to save his daughter from a sleeping epidemic. A man books into a hotel where the guests check in but never check out. A group of fine-dining cannibals worry where their next meal will come from. And a grieving mother goes in search of ghosts in a haunted house.
Human Tenderloin is a collection of horror stories with heart. Some will goose the skin. Others will leave you bloated with terror. But each one will stay with you.”
I’m sure that anyone who reviews movies or books, whether as a writer or podcaster or youtuber, would agree that the toughest part of the job is when you feel obligated to give a bad review. Someone puts their time and work and creativity out on the line, and probably sends you a free copy of their work along with a heartfelt, grateful message of thanks, and you have no choice but to tear it apart. How do you put that out in the world? Knowing they’re going to check in to see what you thought, knowing that they will be sad, or even angry, about your response to the offspring of their life’s devotion? You try as hard as you can to find the tiniest positives – “The cover looks great,” or “I really liked the main actor in that other movie,” or even “Whoever formatted this book really knows how to left-justify the text.” But when you hit “post,” you feel just as sad as the poor writer or director who created the piece is going to feel.
Luckily, thank your fictional deity, this is NOT the case with Craig Wallwork’s latest collection, Human Tenderloin.
Craig Wallwork is one of those rare writers who can grab his audience just as tightly with a short story as he can with a novel-length work; he can write horror and noir and “literary fiction” all with the same skilled pen, and he never seems to run out of ink. And not only does he manage a unique take on even the most familiar story, but somehow, even in the nastiest, goriest tales he tells, he is always able to inject his characters and scenarios with a ton of heart, bringing his audience to feel empathy for even the shadiest of scoundrels. And this is exactly what is on display in Human Tenderloin, a collection of 16 short stories that delve into a wide range of horrors.
Reviewing a collection of short stories can be tough, because it’s tempting to just make a list of favorites, briefly synopsize a small handful of them without giving a dreaded *spoiler*, and be done with it. Hell, game recognizes game – that’s exactly how I used to write book reviews. But across the stories of a tight collection, common themes and moods come through. And throughout these collected stories, along with the expected dread and terror, there is a juxtaposition of a warm hopefulness and a healthy distrust, both of the powers that be and of our own rationale. Sometimes the monsters are not “monsters” at all, but our own loved ones, or even ourselves…and sometimes they follow the definition to the word and are everything you expect a monster to be. Some of these stories begin with a strong hint of where they’re going to end up, but still keep the reader ensnared as they build to their inevitable conclusion; others seem to follow a familiar course, then stop on a dime and twist the reader’s head around.
The collection kicks off with “Bird Girl,” tells of a little girl named Madeline who is born with a condition that causes premature aging, leaving her small and weak. Around the same time, the Earth itself begins to suffer from a “condition” of sorts. The story has APOCALYPSE written all over it, as species start dying and gravity starts disappearing and the world starts crumbling, while at the same time Madeline’s sickness continues to progress… but instead of ending on the death and destruction, Wallwork focuses on the little girl’s hopes and dreams. The end is “the end” in a number of ways, and it’s sad, but it also feels so beautiful, in a Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia kind of way. This is the perfect opener for the book, because it really sets the tone of what’s to come.
Similar in feel is “Night Holds a Scythe” – that title might bring to mind images of Brigitte Lahaie on the poster for Jean Rollin’s Fascination, but this story is more in the vein of Josh Malerman’s Bird Box by way of Chuck Palahniuk’s Survivor. There is a mystery virus killing people in their sleep, so a desperate father steals a small plane and takes his three-year-old daughter on a flight to essentially follow the sun. The details of society’s collapse are interspersed with little Amelia reading her alphabet flashcards…which means she’s still awake…and the fact that Dad hears her means he’s still awake…so, again, there’s still hope, even if the end seems near.
I’ve personally been really excited about ghost/haunted house stories lately, and Human Tenderloin more than quenched that particular thirst for me. “Dollhouse” has a little girl find, believe it or not, a dollhouse in her attic that looks just like her house, and contains dolls that look just like her and her parents. She also thinks she see something else up there. It’s similar to the “The House of the Head” episode of the new Creepshow series (season 1, episode 1), but much deadlier (and about 5 years older). In “Time’s Flies,” a couple buys a new house for a new start, but the wife starts hearing things, seeing things, and believes someone or something died there. “Murder Song” also finds a man who moves in an effort to better his life, but starts hearing noises in his walls and finds a tunnel that leads to a gruesome scene…night after night. In “Everybody Hurts,” a little girl has to deal with the fact that her mother has locked her father in a room and won’t let her see him, won’t let her go out, won’t let her do much of anything. And the final story, the closer, “The Ballad of Windsong House,” is one of the best of the collection, and one of the most hopeful ghost stories I’ve ever read. It gives off vibes of The Haunting and Session 9 while at the same time keeping a fresh, original feel. A handful of people decide to stay the night in a famous “allegedly haunted” house, one of whom had recently lost her own child. Each one of these ghostly tales balances the eerie with a “There certainly must be another explanation” approach that keeps the readers on their toes.
Wallwork does a great job presenting genuine characters in his stories, people you care about and root for and want to see succeed…but he also has a darker side, and is not afraid to dip into the bloody and gory elements of horror. In “The Hole,” kids have been going missing, and a killer is on the loose, and a guy has a new neighbor who has been digging a hole in his backyard - coincidence? The title story, “Human Tenderloin,” is originally from Wallwork’s short collection Gory Hole, which I had the privilege of reviewing back in 2014, and the title says it all; we’re talking cannibals and gore and betrayal and dark humor here. “Mother’s Day” brings a pregnant woman to a lodge for some R&R, but it turns out to have a violent end; this one goes great as a double-feature with Marco Dutra & Juliana Rojas’ As Boas Maneiras (aka Good Manners). “Rosemary and Time” features serial killers, time travel, double-crosses, and pizza (?) in a way that’ll keep you guessing and switching allegiances (originally published in Tales from the Crust, an anthology by my friends and yours, David James Keaton & Max Booth III). And “They Were Born Without Faces” is a brutal, upsetting commentary on class featuring a couple driving along a quiet road and night and discovering a box with something horrifying inside.
And that’s just a selection of what Human Tenderloin delivers…
This is a collection perfectly designed for fans of well-written horror that covers a variety of sub-genres and has something else to say right alongside the scares and the blood and guts. Craig Wallwork is a writer that knows how to deliver frights and tension in his work without ever sacrificing his characters…I mean, there are many characters “sacrificed” throughout these stories, but at least we know who they are before they get the ax. There seems to be a TON of great horror fiction coming out these days, and it’s hard to keep up with everything, much less find time to read it all. But I truly believe Human Tenderloin belongs in every horror fan’s “must-read” pile, because I think it brings something special to the world of creepy fiction: a ton of heart.
Craig Wallwork lives in West Yorkshire, England. His short stories have appeared in many journals, magazines, and anthologies in the UK and US. He is the author of the Tom Nolan detective series, Bad People and Labyrinth of the Dolls, as well as the novels Heart of Glass and The Sound of Loneliness, and the story collections Quintessence of Dust and Gory Hole. He was also the co-author of the micro collection Serious Moonlight, along with Amanda Gowin. Get a free ebook by Craig by visiting here.