Acquired Tastes

What do you want from a collection of horror short stories? A complex mix of different styles and authors, or a single voice? When it comes to horror, I want them to feel like a quick punch to the guts, only for you to look down and find that the punch was more of a stab. Clay McLeod Chapman knows what I am on about because Acquired Taste is a lovely collection of nasty little stories. 

What scares you the most? Ghosts, monsters, the horror of the everyday? There is at least one story of each type within this collection. The collection brings together short form stories from the author from the years 2017-24. Chapman’s distinct style is felt throughout them, a lot of first-person narrative, and few speech marks on show. Although the style may be similar, the themes differ. 

It appears that Chapman has a healthy disregard for those that try to oppose their will on others. Institutions like cable news are targeted in The Spew of News, a short story that informed Chapman’s later longform Wake Up and Open Your Eyes, which explores the mind chewing grind of Fax News. Politics tribalism is explored to violent effect in Posterboard. Even the Boy Scouts cannot escape in Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key, a frankly bizarro story about one Scout Master’s rally against comic books that ends up unleashing a far worse evil than a few words and images. 

Indeed, some of Chapman’s best stories are the right kind of twisted that makes you worry a little about the author’s mindset. Hermit is about a man who shares his brain with a little visitor, only for there to be a nasty surprise at the end. Pump and Dump is the type of tale that can only come out of a slightly fevered mind as a man finds a vintage breast pump and decides to use it on himself. The less said about Baby Carrots, the better, you just won’t see root vegetables in the same way again. 

I loved Chapman’s dark and twisted tales, but some of the stories are also good ghost stories. These are not quite as dark and have some sense of hope but are just as fun to read. Psychic Santa is as sweet a horror story as you are going to get from this author. 

One theme that I found the most disturbing are those stories that explore the horror of the mundane, everyday horror that does not need the supernatural’s help. The quiet indignity and horror of Debridement, the gentle coping found in Nocturnal Gardener, the love that still exists for a parent by a child even after horrific events in All Ears. In many ways these are the simplest stories, but also the most horrific as they could happen. 

Acquired Taste is an accomplished collection of short stories by an author who was able to establish their voice early and use it in various styles of horror story. It is an unsettling bunch in the style that I like from a short story; quick and nasty, potentially with a twist of scare at the end. This is a collection of stories that any horror fan will enjoy and a great introduction to the writer. I predict that many readers will seek the longer format novels once finishing this collection.