Wounds

Six Stories from the Border of Hell

By: Nathan Ballingrud

Narrated by: Corey Brill, Danny Campbell, Matthew Lloyd Davies, Rebekkah Ross, Jacques Roy

“Stretch[es] the boundaries of the genre...It’s horrifying, but there’s beauty.” —The New York Times
“One of the field’s most accomplished short story writers.” —The Washington Post

A gripping collection of six stories of terror—including the novella “The Visible Filth,” the basis for the upcoming major motion picture—by Shirley Jackson Award–winning author Nathan Ballingrud, hailed as a major new voice by Jeff VanderMeer, Paul Tremblay, and Carmen Maria Machado—“one of the most heavyweight horror authors out there” (The Verge).

In his first collection, North American Lake Monsters, Nathan Ballingrud carved out a distinctly singular place in American fiction with his “piercing and merciless” (Toronto Globe and Mail) portrayals of the monsters that haunt our lives—both real and imagined: “What Nathan Ballingrud does in North American Lake Monsters is to reinvigorate the horror tradition” (Los Angeles Review of Books).

Now, in Wounds, Ballingrud follows up with an even more confounding, strange, and utterly entrancing collection of six stories, including one new novella. From the eerie dread descending upon a New Orleans dive bartender after a cell phone is left behind in a rollicking bar fight in “The Visible Filth” to the search for the map of hell in “The Butcher’s Table,” Ballingrud’s beautifully crafted stories are riveting in their quietly terrifying depictions of the murky line between the known and the unknown.

I must be desensitized

wasn't as gory and horror-filled as it was made out to be, but it was still a great read. The stories seem a little disjointed until you figure out that they are all related somehow. The final story sets the groundwork for the first 5. I enjoyed it and will be looking for more work from this author.

Decent collection of horror!

I was happy to discover that these were pretty interconnected, and I’m guessing they connect more than I gathered on my first listen. I’d say it’s definitely worth a second read through, just to get all the nuances of this hell-infested world that’s on display. I loved some stories and narrators more than others (I picked this book simply because I adore Corey Brill’s voice) but honestly, it’s a solid read. Every story has a different vibe to it so it doesn’t get boring or tiresome if you’re not really feeling one writing style or the characters. Power through and the next will surprise you I’m sure!

My new favorite short story collection

Surprisingly emotionally charged stories with shared details creating a through line in these vivid, harrowing, incomprehensible depictions of hell and it’s intersection with the corporeal realm. I can’t recommend it enough.

Evol

An interesting collection with themes of love among the abominable & diabolic. It’s flayed, vivisected, and everted- an inside out intimacy left to those unloved, unconstrained, or unconscionable.

Genuinely Re-listenable

For some reason I found the Hulu adaptation of “The Visible Filth” easier to digest than the story in “Wounds”, so I came back to the book. I’d actually rank “…Filth” low on a list of the six stories best-to-worst.

Ballingrud is an exceptional author for contemporary horror. I’m no English major, but I think this is what they mean by “literary horror.” The language here is awesome, even the bonkers supernatural pirate period piece goes down smooth.

To really top it off, most of the several readers are standouts too. I’m here at goodreads looking for more of their work.