Do you remember the ghost in Shakespeare's Hamlet telling his story, asking his son to avenge his "murder most foul"? What Fran Lewis wrote in "Faces Behind the Stones" is as frightening as those ghostly scenes.
We can all be grateful that non-fiction writer, reviewer, blogger, and radio host Fran Lewis has taken a plunge into the world of horror fiction. Reading those seven stories about murder and suicide just about scared the daylights out of me. The characters are so real that I could very clearly hear their voices speaking to me from their graves. They were talking to me, just like the ghost in Shakespeare's Hamlet talked to his son. This is what happened to me, those voices were saying. I need for someone to know the truth. Please, be my witness. Perhaps having so recently lost four of our family members (albeit to natural causes) has made me more predisposed to believe that the dead can speak. If you agree with me or not, still, I guarantee any reader of this collection a sleepless night. Or worse. Perchance to dream, as Hamlet feared?
Besides the stories in this book, I also love the cover art! The gravestones are tall structures, and in the background is a face half-hidden in the mist. Is it a young girl? Is it a woman? It's lovely. It's sad. It's dead! I can almost hear the dogs barking. Or is it wolves howling? Just looking at the book cover lets you know that you're in for the fright of your life. Good job, Robert Hunyor; and well-chosen, Fran Lewis!
Besides the mysteries told in these stories, there is another--very real--mystery to this book. At least to me! The author dedicates her collection to the memory of her beloved sister, Marcia Wallach, who died unexpectedly and much too young. While Ms. Lewis tells us that this is a work of fiction, she also tells us that the events described in her stories are based on facts. Written with enough changes to protect the guilty, Ms. Lewis? While reading these stories, I was trying to deduce where reality ends and fiction begins. Or as MJ Walsh says in the book's Prologue: "Hear my voice. Listen to my story and you decide: natural causes or murder?" Is my imagination running wild or might MJ Walsh be Marcia Wallach?
Well, here I am, right back to my Shakespearean analogy. As Hamlet said, "The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King." So now, as I think back to some of the stories in this collection, here is my question. Is there possibly a treacherous King Claudius in the author's life, whose conscience she's trying to catch with her fiction based on true events?
Shakespeare said:
"I have heard,
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaimed their malefactions
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ."
Fran Lewis does speak with most miraculous organ about murder. And if my hunch, and Shakespeare's prediction about the guilty, is correct, there might very well be a sequel to "Faces Behind the Stones."
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