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 Reviewed by: The Rev 29th Mar 2004 
 


In the Garden of Poisonous Flowers

Caitlin R. Kiernan
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This novella may be slight, but that's not the only reason it was a one-day read for me. Kiernan, perhaps the premier stylist in gothic literature (she eschews the term “horror,” and in truth her work does often seem to head more into the dark fantasy realm) today, is quite simply a fine writer on top of it all.

In the Garden of Poisonous Flowers is a prequel to Kiernan's novel Threshold, introducing the albino Dancy Flammarion, who does such things as talk to angels and stuffed bears (who talk back, of course) and kill monsters. Fate, destiny, or whatever you'd like to call it has Dancy hooking up with a carload of very strange folks on their way to Savannah to take in a meeting with a rather odd group of Southern belles who give a whole new meaning to the term “ladies' auxiliary.” A strange boy with a bottle fits into the tale, as well (but readers are advised that how it is, exactly, he fits will not be revealed under later in Dancy's career).

I get the feeling Kiernan is one of those writers you either love or hate. Her stories are, for the most part, style over substance; there's meat on the bones, but it tends to be somewhat lean and smell slightly of mange. Like the majority of modern horror writers who work in multiple-volume tales (thank you, Stephen King, for this annoying trend), when you find yourself finishing this tale, you'll probably end up with more questions than you had when you started. (Answer a few, and end up with a whole lot more, by reading Threshold. Then we'll talk.) So in other words, what you have with In the Garden of Poisonous Flowers (and, in my experience, the majority of Kiernan's tales) is a slice of what amounts to a very weird and otherworldly life. It's taking the hyperrealism of, say, Joyce Carol Oates' early work and dropping it wholesale onto a dark alternate universe. I can understand how it would jar. What makes Kiernan worth your time, though, is the beauty of the language, how the words come together to paint the pictures in your head. That's what this book is all about, in the end.

It didn't do as much for me as did Candles for Elizabeth or her contribution to Wrong Things, but it's still a pretty fine piece of work.



See also
Candles for Elizabeth by Caitlin R. Kiernan reviewed by The Rev
From Weird and Distant Shores by Caitlin R. Kiernan reviewed by The Rev
The Dry Salvages by Caitlin R. Kiernan reviewed by The Rev
Wrong Things by Poppy Z. Brite & Caitlin R. Kiernan reviewed by The Rev
Beasts by Joyce Carol Oates reviewed by The Rev
Big Mouth and Ugly Girl by Joyce Carol Oates reviewed by The Rev
Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates reviewed by Bonnie
The Edge of Impossibility: Tragic Forms in Literature by Joyce Carol Oates reviewed by The Rev
The Time Traveler by Joyce Carol Oates reviewed by The Rev
The Triumph of the Spider Monkey by Joyce Carol Oates reviewed by The Rev
We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates reviewed by Suzz
Women Whose Lives Are Food, Men Whose Lives Are Money by Joyce Carol Oates reviewed by The Rev