UNDISCOVERED TERRITORIES reviewed by Belinda Brady, Aurealis #149
Short story collections are the often-overlooked treat tucked away on a bookshelf. Single author collections are unlike anthologies, mostly comprising authors writing stories based around the same theme. A collection often puts out some of an author’s best work, resulting in a mixed bag of memorable stories—as in this collection.
Undiscovered Territories by Robert Freeman Wexler is nothing short of magnificent. Everything about this book is perfection: the cover, the layout, the presentation, the story notes. Wexler has pored over every detail in his body of work, and it shows. This book is something short story authors will aspire to create. Wexler’s writing is pure brilliance. Effortlessly descriptive, he gets straight to the point, plunging the reader into the protagonist’s world. Each story is captivating, disturbing and memorable.
Wexler’s genre is dark and bizarre at times, but he doesn’t rely on heavy gore or horror to drive his story. He tugs at the psychological horrors one can and will experience—marriage failures, breakdowns, anxiety—as well as the odd thing that goes bump in the night. For the most part, he has made the monsters the things we live with daily, and this makes each story haunting in its own right.
Readers will likely each find at least one favourite story among the stellar stories on offer. Standouts include: ‘The Baker’, which follows an ex-footballer’s dream to open a bakery; ‘Indifference’, where a man’s struggle with his marriage breakdown slides into a bizarre mental breakdown; and ‘New Neighbours’, which tells the tale of a young man who, desperate to start over, moves into an idyllic isolated town and finds much more than he bargained for.
Undiscovered Territories by Robert Freeman Wexler is a fantastic collection of stories by an exceptionally talented author. It’s a book that fans of the weird and weirdly wonderful will want to revisit again and again.
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