Frank's Book Log

An accomplished debut collection from Fracassi. ”Altar” shines with Mandala a strong second. Not a below average entry in the bunch. And I loved the author’s notes section, where Fracassi grants insight into each story’s origin (and confirms my thoughts Mandala’s ending).

At the beach, twelve-year-olds Mike and Joe play, unaware of the malevolent forces at work around them. Continue reading...

A twelve-year-old boy’s father and other family “friends” have built a chamber in the family basement to contain his mother when she “turns”. One night, things go wrong. Continue reading...

Boy meets girl at a college freshman mixer. They date, fall in love, graduate and marry. They move to his hometown and begin their lives together. The bliss fades. His career takes off, hers flounders. Resentment sets in. Things escalate when she takes an interest in the ominous woods surrounding their home. Continue reading...

A serial killer comes of age during a vacation with his mother and step-father in Acapulco. Continue reading...

The local vicar strikes up a relationship with a woman seeking to build an orphanage on church lands. But the woman harbors a secret interest in Amelia Dyer, a notorious Victorian-era serial killer who preyed on infants in her care. Continue reading...

Sylvia attends her nana’s funeral. Through flashbacks, we learn nana wasn’t the sweet old lady most believed. Continue reading...

One humid Florida night, Gabino, an aging horse thief, steals a prize mare for Fat Ted, a black-market middleman. Bad things happen. Continue reading...

I struggle to remember the last time a story evoked such a visceral sense of dread. Both Chuck Palahniuk’s “Guts” and Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho had scenes that forced me to stop reading, but “Altar” is different. Continue reading...

Tom receives a frantic pre-dawn call from long-time friend Marcus. Arriving at Marcus’s apartment, Tom discovers a surreal horror. Fracassi’s Twilight Zone style take on Uri Geller’s spoon bending trick proves entertaining. His deft description of dreamscapes and the surreal echo Clive Barker, though he stops short of the big reveal, leaving it to our imagination.