Stories are told in clumps of details that do not smooth into predictable story arcs. Exhibits, too are skipped and-ominously-redacted. The chapbook begins with Case 3, then proceeds with Case 8. The text is divided into five “cases,” each further divided into a series of “exhibits.” Such lexical cues bring to mind a legal trial or a police procedural, sparking expectations for facts, foreshadowing, and, eventually, mysteries solved.īut slippage occurs between these expectations and the content that follows. With the exception of the cover-which could easily provoke nightmares of its own-the formal presentation appears familiar and orderly. Twenty-Five Trumbulls Road consists of five chilling stories linked to a single house and its surrounding countryside. But I assure you, this is the perfect time for literary escape, and reading this winner of the Black River Chapbook Competition has transformed me into a new and enthusiastic fan of speculative literary fiction. So, full disclosure: I was already unsettled when I cracked open Christopher Locke’s new chapbook, 25 Trumbulls Road, and eager to tumble into his fictive universe. We are trapped in a sci-fi thriller in which the known world has been upended by isolation and exponential growth. As I write, real-life horrors unfold on computer screens, in nursing homes, bank accounts, and tents pitched outside hospital doors.
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