How do you quantify genius? How do you measure literary achievement, especially when the work in question appears as a mass market paperback with the word "horror" on its spine? Can such a book even be considered an achievement? Can its transcendent themes be separated from the more mundane themes of thrillers and other escapist fare? Not to dis escapism, for it is a noble endeavor—entertaining the crowds is, after all, a Shakespearean and Dickensian task that should not be looked down upon. But every once in a while, a work comes along that begs to be read differently, screams to be heard as more than entertainment, and, in so doing, plants its claws deep inside your soul where it wreaks havoc on the world you see as reality. Whenever a book can do that, mess with your reality, then it is more than entertaining. Then it showcases genius.

In Silent Graves first saw publication as The Indifference of Heaven (yes, it's a Warren Zevon song), racking up a near-cult following in short order, and ratcheting up the already superb reputation of its author, Gary A. Braunbeck. For years I have tagged Braunbeck stories "the soul" of each anthology in which they appeared. For years, tales with the Braunbeck byline caused insane jealousy in other writers who could scan their own work and wonder, why bother? Braunbeck's intense emotional approach to short fiction can be compared only to a handful of other masterful contemporary crafters of prose: Ellison, Hodge, Hopkins, Clegg. There are others, but these will give you a sense of the company Braunbeck stories keep. The collection Things Left Behind is a milestone gathering of some of these tales, and a collector's item, too. This author does not play with a normal hand—his cards seem to have been dealt by higher beings with ulterior motives. A recent Bram Stoker Award win, for a short story as emotionally wrenching as you're ever likely to read, has sealed the deal. Gary Braunbeck is a voice to contend with, a voice which cannot be ignored, and a voice that will still your heart with its song.

Robert Londrigan starts out almost an Everyman. Yes, he's a popular local television anchorman, but he's like all of us in that he's self-involved, a bit petty, wrapped up in his own ego and just a bit too unaware of others' suffering. But, as In Silent Graves opens, it is Halloween and he has had a fight with Denise, his pregnant wife. Before he can make things right, she suffers another miscarriage and is taken from him—ripped from him, really—along with his child-to-be Emily, a baby born without a brain, without a chance, without a reason to be. In the midst of Robert's grief, a masked or disfigured man-child beats him and asks, repeatedly, "Do you despair?" And that is how In Silent Graves begins, but this description does nothing to indicate the depth of human emotion Braunbeck coaxes from every paragraph, every sentence, every word. Robert is cast adrift in a sea of grief every bit as real as the grief we all feel at our own loss, or loss-to-come. Braunbeck accurately pegs each emotion, each sensation, each silent jab of loss and regret. It's as if he reaches into every soul and wrings forth a personal requiem, a piece of music which only comes close to describing the devastation of sadness and grief.

I would dare anyone to read the beginning 150 pages of this novel without feeling Robert's loss in the pit of their stomach, realizing that such loss is waiting for us all, if it hasn't already found us. Braunbeck has, simply but powerfully, written the transcript of how grief feels, will feel, or has felt. In Robert's grief lies much of the book's darkness.

But Robert slowly changes, shedding his mantle of Everyman. As Rael, the masked or disfigured man-child begins to toy with him, to show him things and snippets of rhyme that connect him to the departed Denise, Robert finds himself committing acts that test the accepted boundaries of the rational. In a fit of rage and mysterious compulsion, Robert loses then buries his daughter's missing body at home as if it were a pet, yet knowing that it is expected of him. Every woman he ever loved or felt attracted to somehow returns to him, bearing cryptic messages. Other surprises begin to accumulate, as he finds that his destiny is somehow tied to Rael's—through a mythology that's both religious and somehow sacrilegious, holy and yet somehow horrific. Robert learns about chronos time and kairos time, and how he and his family straddle both. And why he must abandon what he was—his human foibles, as it were—to seek a higher destiny with a creature out of mythology that is all too real, but too impossible to comprehend. In this journey, Robert will learn also of the children, the abused and abandoned, the disfigured and retarded, the cast out and the ignored, which he will now have to take his rightful place in order to protect. In their innocent struggle to survive he will see his own redemption.

If all this sounds unlike any horror novel of recent memory, it's because "horror" only begins to scratch the surface of what happens in Robert's life. In Silent Graves is a literary onion—each layer peeled away reveals yet another, each story told contains another, and inside each Matryoshka doll fashioned by Denise nests another. Indeed, the elements of fantasy are stronger here than those of "scary" horror, though the horrific is represented quite prominently by the evil that humans do, especially the evil perpetrated on children. Gary Braunbeck has taken as his theme this evil, and he has encapsulated in this novel both a castigation for it and, with its hopeful mythology, a resolution for it. An accomplished author of great sensitivity and integrity, Gary Braunbeck's In Silent Graves is unforgettable, a true achievement in the field of dark fiction.