Robert Shearman: Horror and Humanity

My essay on the short fiction of Robert Shearman is now up at the Thresholds website. Below is a small excerpt. You can read the rest of the essay at the link above.

The first time I met Robert Shearman he was collecting a prize for his second collection, Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical. He was affable and friendly and he talked quickly, as if ideas were sliding straight from his brain to his throat. I hadn’t read any of his stories and I hadn’t met many writers, so I looked for clues to his fiction in his manner, and I came to the erroneous conclusion that his stories were jolly. I imagined page after page of ebullience and cheer; I wasn’t expecting horror. In fact, if anyone had asked before I read Shearman’s stories, I would have said horror wasn’t for me...