Ink is the first published novel of Damien Walters Grintalis. In the past year or so I’ve enjoyed a number of beautiful short stories by Grintalis, most characterized by an especially lush and vivid quality to the language. Though I’m often reluctant to take a chance on first novels, as they’re so often flawed in terms of structure and pacing, her short fiction convinced me Ink would be worth a try.

It’s the story of Jason Harford, a young man devastated after having been left by his wife just before the novel begins. He sets out to soothe the pain of rejection, telling himself he’s celebrating his newfound autonomy by doing things his controlling ex-wife never would’ve permitted. He gets drunk in a bar, and acquiesces to a stranger’s suggestion that he should get a tattoo. The tattoo artist, a crusty and uncomfortably menacing old guy Jason calls “Sailor,” asks Jason to sign a liability waiver before he proceeds. Jason starts to wonder what he’s gotten himself into, but the resulting tattoo of a griffin is beautiful, exactly what he wants. It impresses his friends, even leads to a hookup with an attractive young lady named Mitch, who also happens to have a griffin tattoo.

Jason starts to think he’s dodged the worst of the pain of being rejected by his wife. A cool new tattoo, more time to spend with his friends, even a cute young lady who fell into his lap, and seems really into him. Maybe things will turn out better for Jason, not worse… right?

Most readers will have guessed that the significance of Jason’s tattoo goes more than skin deep. The name of the book, and the sinister nature of the tattoo artist (real name John S. Iblis) should make clear there’s a price to pay, a reversal to come. The tattoo isn’t quite what it seemed, and Jason hasn’t seen the last of “Sailor.”

Many writers whose short fiction is especially poetic or stylized often take a simpler approach when working at novel length, and that’s the case here. The writing is deft and effective, with a straight-ahead style of minimal adornment, a focus on clarity. There’s never any question what’s happening, or why a character is doing what they are — both frequent problems in first novels. The story is engaging from chapter one, and moves briskly through to the end without faltering or getting side-tracked.

Grintalis is certainly an emerging writer worth keeping an eye on. I’d love to see her approach the novel form using the more poetic, almost ornamented style of language of some of her short stories. In any case, Ink is a successful and most promising debut novel.

Knock Knock, a novel by S. P. Miskowski, follows a trio of girls, from the town of Skillute in western Washington state. We’re introduced to Marietta, Ethel and Beverley at age eleven, follow their lives as they grow up to womanhood, see their connections to each other evolve and shift as the events of life and adulthood affect them individually and together. The girls hear horrible rumors of what happens to women who become pregnant, and resolve that this will never happen to them.

Marietta lives with her aunt Delphine, who is something like the town mystic, herbalist and fortune-teller, and has an idea of a spell the girls might perform in order to ensure they’re never burdened with motherhood. They find a remote, seemingly spot in the woods to perform the ritual, despite Skillute area legend that “Miss Knocks” lives in the forest and will chase children and possibly snatch them away. The discovery of strange bones half-buried in the wild, combined with the tales of Miss Knocks, leaves the girls more frightened of the woods and their own weird, occult-like ritual, than of the fear of eventual pregnancy which drove them out there in the first place.

All three girls remember that day. The memories have a different effect on each, with the passing of time. Miskowski examines the way fear of legends affects the living, not only in terms of the actual manifest “powers” of the force of legend, but also by the way our fear shifts us, opens us up to risks, and closes off possibilities.

We revisit the trio as they age, learn more about their family backgrounds, and see how they fit into their community. The familiarity of the settings and seeming normalcy of the characters heighten the effect of disquiet and strangeness when horrific elements intrude. Miskowski’s strength is in the naturalistic depiction of characters and real-life events and settings, which is not to say she lacks skill in depicting the horrific or supernatural elements. It’s that vibrantly lifelike sense of observing real human beings as their lives pass from the normal to the strange that heightens the effect of fear and unease when it occurs.

Knock Knock creeps up on the reader slowly, without flashy effects or a fast pace. I was won over by Miskowski’s believable characters, and the realistic depiction of a supernatural intrusion into small town life. Miskowski has announced a forthcoming series of novellas based on this place and set of characters, the first of which is Delphine Dodd. The darkly effective creepiness Knock Knock is enough to make me want to see what more she does with the Skillute milieu. Recommended, especially for readers who favor suspenseful, slow-building psychological horror.

I first saw Paul Tremblay’s name mentioned in the blogs of several other writers I enjoy, so it should be no surprise that I enjoy the fictional worlds he creates. I love the way Tremblay balances strange and playful elements against emotional realism and seriousness. These stories take chances, but never leave the reader behind in pursuit of writerly flourishes or abstractions.

The bulk of the collection is comprised of whimsical yet dark pieces existing in a sort of no-man’s-land between genre fantasy, thinking person’s horror and the absurdist-realist balancing act of Aimee Bender or Donald Barthelme. Think “weird fiction” in the modernist sense, rather than Weird Tales or Lovecraft. Many of these stories would be as much at home in the New Yorker as a genre periodical, though the oddity and off-kilter of Tremblay’s work will certainly please readers geared toward the fantastic or the dark.

Earlier pieces address birth, childhood and youth, as in the memorable “The Teacher,” where a class full of kids follow a teacher to cult-like extremes in pursuit of a difficult lesson, or “It’s Against the Law to Feed the Ducks,” which depicts a strange family vacation full of delusion and deception. In the middle are a few slight pieces, more like vignettes than stories, but later on the collection moves on to address post-apocalypse or “breakdown of society” scenarios, in every case without explaining what happened, or how. “We Will Never Live in the Castle,” in which characters try to survive in an a disintegrating amusement park, is a highlight.

Though often weirdly troubling, Tremblay’s tales are direct in the telling, emotionally honest and straightforward enough to be easily understood. By turns funny, shocking, disturbing, touching, often all the above in the space of a single story, In the Mean Time leaves me extremely impressed by Tremblay’s craft and his intelligence. I highly recommended this adventurous and marvelously weird collection.