by Gary A. Braunbeck

You know you've entered the realm of the surreal when, a few pages in, you find a bowler-wearing, snappily dressed "Magritte-Man" at the side of the road. Rene Magritte, as Gil Stewart explains to his passenger, was a Surrealist painter whose work we all recognize—bowler-wearing men with apples and various nudes propped in front of their faces. But then this weird living painting, this Magritte-Man, is killed after darting into freeway traffic to chase his runaway hat. Gil, who bothered to retrieve the lost bowler for him, is there as he dies. But not before whispering a warning about the Keepers.

And then things get weirder. Huge mastiffs start following Gil. A large wounded dog comes to Gil's home to die. Gil's memory about a cat accidentally killed returns, bringing with it the sadness he felt. He remembers his violent reaction to someone's mistreatment of a stray cat, along with the strange events which ensued. A mysterious package arrives, triggering more memories. His nephew's comic book seems to be drawing itself, telling Gil a story he's supposed to already know. And then the memory dam bursts, and we are in Gil's youth, when a certain shooting at a certain university fulminated that era's anti-war movement and changed his life in unpredictable ways, not least of which would be the arrival in his life of Beth, the woman he would always love—but who would disappear without a trace for decades. And what of the Keepers? Who are they and what do they keep? Gil knows, but Gil does not remember.

In Silent Graves dealt brilliantly with society's treatment of children, but here Braunbeck mines a different vein. The elderly and animals are disparate groups who intersect in the way we depersonalize them when relegating loved ones and pets to nursing homes or animal shelters. It's for their own good, right? Braunbeck dares to display our collective callousness, and his narrative is richer for the invoked sadness. Read Whitey's lament on page 188 and you will not be unmoved. As usual, it's a story with a lot of heart, coaxing tears and shivers of understanding with equal ease.

Buried within this very engaging background is a theo-philosophical morality play about love and compassion, duty, and our obligations to those who can't fend for themselves. Somehow simultaneously magical and horrific, Braunbeck once again blends the fable, rich with allegory, and the horror tale into a fascinating mythological hybrid that keeps you guessing about its destination. In fact, since the plot revolves around forgotten pasts and repressed memories, it swirls and eddies like memory itself, occasionally disorienting the reader with flashes of horror that belie prior sensitive moments. There are, indeed, two sides to every story, as Gil finds out.

While the ending may, to some, apply too much violent shock value, it appears necessary as an act of cleansing. Slightly more problematic may be the reliance on an old trope, the forgotten past, but each tale must be allowed one device upon which to build its mechanism—and here, given the nature of the repressed memories, it fits without too much nudging. The end result is yet another original tour through the gamut of human emotions, this time mixed nicely with those of our generally silent, submissive animal friends. As usual, the effect is not to be taken lightly, or easily forgotten.