Look, I hate most things. I hate hings just for the bitter pleasure of telling people that the thing they like is dumb, and they're dumb for liking it. I hate myself, too, so very likely my disposition is a large character flaw pointing to some undiagnosed mental illness, but I mean...
I liked Disintegration.
Simon Williams is a talented writer, and, with a few exceptions, has a mastery of the language. His prose is eloquent and smooth, grotesque, yet oddly beautiful. One of the things that impressed me is that he uses nature almost as a character, rather than a stagnant background.
"Inevitably the foliage employs increasingly extreme methods in an attempt to stall the progress of the wrecked and bleeding figure, the interloper in the chaos."
This is a unique departure, as normally I see nature used as a backdrop, or as a device for vague symbolism. There might be a forest, but the character only interacts with the rock they trip over. Green-screen greenery, you know what I mean? I do it myself, and it's likely a result of all those "How to Write Gud" books that tell you to focus on character above all else.
Disintegration is a collection of 9 stories, varying from psychological horror to science fiction, and I loved the variety and crossing of genres. My favorite story was "The Gentle Decay of the Past". It is about a Purgatory-esque, halfway home for damaged people who have nowhere else to be sent.
"Arnold House was a curious place. It appeared to be for people who had either given up or forgotten how to continue, and who the authorities thought should therefore be shackled in a routine of some sort, no matter how useless it might be."
It is an eerie story with memorable characters and a unique-yet-familiar setting. I'm a huge fan of Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, so "Gentle Decay" thrummed similar strings.
Overall, I enjoyed the collection, but I do have a few critiques. Williams use of elaborate, beautiful prose sometimes obscures the story, and I had to reread passages to figure out what was being said. His descriptions are well crafted, but he seems to go too far with some of his word choices, trying a little too hard to make it clear. This is particularly noteworthy when characters speak:
“I’ve never seen it before,” she said dismissively."
Characters point out, smoothly say, invite... all modifiers to what could be a near-invisible "he said, she said" or by leaving the dialogue to stand on its own. I think this happens because he doesn't use a lot of dialogue, so Williams descriptive and narrative skills are more refined, and it is evident in these stories. The stories would move faster and be less likely to lose the reader if the prose was leaner.
The one other criticism I have is that his main characters, especially in the first person stories, are all very similar in tone, diction and overall feel. This is a very hard thing to shake; all my characters are vaguely suicidal millennials, most of Stephen King's main characters seem to be Joe Everymen (but also a writer, artist, teacher, etc.) Such similar characters are tolerable when we have a novel length work to really see the subtle differences, but with short stories, especially read one after another, the characters start to blur together.
Overall, Simon Williams is a talented short story writer. I recommend Disintegration, and right now it's only .99 cents, and is well worth more money than that. There are a few stumbles, but none of them make the stories unreadable or unenjoyable.
Buy "Disintegration" on Amazon right here
Check out his website:
http://simonwilliamsauthor.com/
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