{"id":371,"date":"2014-11-08T11:53:35","date_gmt":"2014-11-08T11:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chimneyrabbit.com\/?p=371"},"modified":"2015-06-15T08:12:25","modified_gmt":"2015-06-15T08:12:25","slug":"review-thirteen-chairs-by-dave-shelton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/?p=371","title":{"rendered":"Review: Thirteen Chairs by Dave Shelton"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Thirteen<\/a><\/p>\n

Dave Shelton’s previous book, A Boy and a Bear in a Boat<\/em>, was a masterpiece of the absurd. His latest book, Thirteen Chairs<\/em>, is a completely different kettle of fish – it’s a compilation of creepy tales, contained in a framework where Jack, a curious boy, listens to twelve ghostly figures tell stories of death and horror.<\/p>\n

In some ways this approach is reminiscent of the old horror\u00a0anthology films like\u00a0Vault of Horror<\/em> or\u00a0Tales from the Crypt<\/em>. But where\u00a0Vault of Horror<\/em> gave you four tales within its framing narrative,\u00a0Thirteen Chairs<\/em> delivers a delicious smorgasbord of thirteen stories.<\/p>\n

Each story is distinct – some are historical, some are modern; some are gory, others are creepy; some echo folk tales while others have more in common with Poe. Each narrator has their own quirks and individual voice.<\/p>\n

My particular favourite (although it’s hard to choose!) was “The Girl in the Red Coat”. Small girls in red coats are inherently terrifying to anyone who’s seen\u00a0Don’t Look Now<\/em>, obviously, but this story unfolds beautifully, with the young narrator’s matter-of-fact description of her encounters with schoolyard monsters both natural and supernatural.<\/p>\n

It’s the versatility of this book that impressed me the most – the stories are all so different, yet each one fits perfectly into the framing narrative, where Jack sits in the thirteenth chair, waiting for his turn to tell a tale.<\/p>\n

The illustrations – by Dave Shelton himself, the talented git – work perfectly with the stories. Each story gets a full-page title illustration, dark and inky black.<\/p>\n

I saved this book to read at Halloween – it seemed appropriate. It’s a book for dark evenings and chilly nights. That way you can blame your goosebumps on the cold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dave Shelton’s previous book, A Boy and a Bear in a Boat, was a masterpiece of the absurd. His latest book, Thirteen Chairs, is a completely different kettle of fish – it’s a compilation of creepy tales, contained in a framework where Jack, a curious boy, listens to twelve ghostly figures tell stories of death… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/download-2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p37h7H-5Z","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":374,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions\/374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}